Lima to Stockholm
by Kizmet
Summary: Chasing Ideal #3: When the portal over Manhattan closed Loki failed Thanos. Now the Mad Titan is coming and Loki is not looking forward to the reunion. But the God of Mischief always has an ace up his sleeve and this time it's a certain Midgardian engineer brought back from the dead. Warning: Pro-Accords!
1. All You're Good For

**Lima to Stockholm**

 **Note:** In "Thor" Loki's plan was going fairly well until he had a mental breakdown after finding out Odin hadn't told him about being adopted... And that he was actually a member of species he'd grown up seeing as monsters. In TDW Loki starts in a cell and with little more than his ability to spot opportunities and ends up on the throne of Asgard. In "Avengers" Loki's plan is summed up with "There is no version of this where you come out on top," I'm in the camp that says Loki wasn't really on Thanos' side as the best explanation for subtle, competent Loki in "Thor" and grandstanding to the point of futility Loki in Avengers … Not siding with a guy who is out to destroy all life does not make you a good guy (Wanda, I am looking at you).

 **Chapter One: All You're Good For**

 _It was no coincidence that the All-Father's chambers were found in the shadow of Asgard's throne. Hlidskjalf granted the power of sight, sight not unlike the Gatekeeper's, to whomever sat upon it. From the throne of Asgard the All-Father could not see the future nor the past but he could cast his eyes on any corner of the nine realms. It was that power which caused the throne to cast a shadow so dark even the Gatekeeper's eyes couldn't pierce it. It was the one place in all the cosmos where Heimdall felt no suspicion due to the gap in his sight for it had always been, from the time of his most distant predecessor, and would always be, to the day Asgard fell._

 _Hidden in that shadow from the sight of any who would pry, up to and including the Gatekeeper of the Bifrost, lay the private rooms of Asgard's king and queen, their bedrooms and sitting rooms, Odin's study from which he conducted business to which even Heimdall was not privy, Frigga's private library and a small enclosed garden. The latter two had been Loki's most cherished sanctuaries as a child._

 _Upon taking the throne Loki sealed his father's bedroom with his most powerful spell and moved into his mother's rooms. After bringing Tony Stark's body to Asgard Loki, as Odin, had the coffin placed in Frigga's garden until Thor could be summoned to bury his Shield-brother. From there it was simple enough to transfer the body to Odin's sitting rooms and send an oblivious Thor off to Nidavelllir to bury an empty coffin. Securing the body turned out to be much easier than securing the items needed to convert the sitting from to a bedroom and workshop for the engineer._

 _The techniques required to restore the Midgardian were forbidden for use on any but Asgard's greatest warriors. Breaking the ancient taboo pleased Loki for it's own sake almost as much as seeing the first step in his scheme falling neatly into place when the engineer awoka and accepted 'Odin' at his word… Almost._

"Is there some way for me to talk to my friends,Thor? Let them know I'm okay?" Tony asked.

"You are not 'okay'," Loki said in the guise of Odin. "You are dead and the dead have no business with the living."

"Not buying it Space Pirate," Tony replied."You brought me back to stop this Thanos guy, that's definitely messing with the business of the living."

"The Mad Titan bears Ragnarok as a mantle. He threatens the existence of all that is. He would tilt the balance of life and death until reality is warped and the afterlife overflows, unable to contain the multitudes of the souls of the dead," Odin declared.

"So hell's exothermic, tell me something I don't know," Tony replied, unimpressed.

Odin gave him a puzzled look, "Inside these room you are as one alive, outside of these rooms you will soon be dead."

It was barely two days before Tony had to put that to the test. He waited several hours after Loki had retreated to his own rooms then crept to the door 'Odin' used to come and go by. When the door knob turned easily under his hand Tony got a bad feeling about his escape attempt but he kept going. As he walked through the door into solemnly appointed study his heart suddenly began to pound and his lungs constricted. He tried to turn back but sank to his knees as the burning need to breath took hold. Terror choked him, for a moment he was back in Siberia, drowning in his own blood, in the cave, cruel hand pushing him back into oily water, explosions of color flashed across his vision, blinding him. Barely a foot from the door Tony crumpled to the ground, escaping into unconsciousness.

In the throne room Loki jerked as he felt one of his traps being triggered. Paying only half a mind to the two noble warriors of Asgard who were currently airing their complaints against one another before their king, Loki stepped back and settled on the throne, his chin resting on his hand, he put on an attentive expression while he focused on his magic. The trap was more even effective than he'd hoped after having observed the Midgardian's nightmares. The magic made him struggle to breath, triggering his terror of drowning and his fear further restricted his lungs in a truly vicious cycle that rendered him utterly helpless in moments.

Loki dealt with the two warriors as quickly as he could, the whole time privately cursing their ranks which elevated a petty squabble to a matter worthy of bringing before the All-Father. Then he excused himself, abandoning the courtroom for Odin's study. He picked up the unconscious Midgardian and carried him back to the room set aside for him. Absently Loki sent a clone of himself, disguised as Odin, back to the throne room to continued the audience 'Let them think even the great Odin needs a bathroom break every once and awhile.' while he settled in to wait once again for the Midgardian to awaken.

Tony's mouth twitched, he drew in a deep breath and some of the tension that had followed him into unconsciousness eased. "You were fortunate my father was nearby when you pulled that stunt," Loki said handing him a glass of water.

Tony glanced toward the door and shuddered. He swallowed, "Can- can you tell me how they are? Pepper? Harley? Vision? How Rhodey's coping, I should have been there to help him." he asked in a subdued voice.

"You can ask Odin," Loki said. "I am as constrained as you."

"Not quite," Tony replied, looking toward the door to Frigga's former rooms.

Loki stood abruptly, towering over Tony. "I gave my life for Thor's as we sought to avenge our mother. And he left me to rot!" Loki shouted. "Don't I deserve someplace to remember her in peace?"

Tony scooted back on the bed, sitting up to try to disguise his need to put some distance between himself and the enraged super sol- Asgardian. "Anyone would, Reindeer Games" he said pointedly. "And at least Thor waited 'til you stopped breathing to abandon you."

Loki stepped back taking a deep breath. "Your former Captain betrayed and murdered you, that is true."

"For Barnes," Tony said tersely. "I thought he was my friend."

Loki's gaze sharpened, "But did he ever think the same? Were you so desperate, your notion of friendship so shallow that you fooled yourself into seeing friendship where only acquaintanceship existed? Thor claimed me as his brother, even after the truth was known. Then he left me," he added bitterly. "His only care for that mortal mayfly of his."

"I just want to know that they're okay," Tony repeated stubbornly.

In the months that followed, in the guise of Odin, indulged Tony's request. Loki told Tony about how FRIDAY was working with Rhodes to allow the crippled pilot to continue to fly War Machine. "Brilliant baby girl, you take care of him for me." He told him of Pepper and Rhodey's work on the Accords and then SHRA. "I knew I could count on them to handle things." He told him of Hope van Dyne and Pym Technologies throwing their support behind the Accords. "That never would have happened while I was alive." Of the new Avengers; Wasp, Captain Marvel, and Ronin; bolstering the team's ranks. "Good, Rhodey won't have to go crawling back to _them_." Of Harley and Peter's progress on buildings braces to allow Rhodey to walk again. "They'll get there. And second generation Science Bros, how cool is that?" Loki didn't mention Harley's uncertainties about his new position or Peter's fights against the Goblin. He carefully edited any mention of Pepper's pregnancy and of Tony's daughter out of the information he gave Tony.

"They're okay," Tony said, almost to himself a feeling of peace settling over him. "They don't need me."

Loki glanced up from where he poking at the growing pile of machine components in the corners of Tony's room. "Until Thanos arrives and slaughters everyone on your pathetic planet."

Tony looked away, "The boys-"

"Aren't enough. They aren't you and they don't know what's coming," Loki pressed. "Odin isn't asking you to do anything you haven't before." He stepped closer. Tony tensed, refusing to give ground. Loki reached out, keeping his movements slow and deliberate. "They need you, like they've always needed you." He cupped the back of Tony's neck mimicking Thor's favorite gesture of affection toward his younger brother: Taking Loki's life in his hands and not doing harm as he held it there.

"I'm not that easy," Tony snarked, his chin coming up definitely.

Loki smiled. He wondered if the mortal's heart had been pounding so hard back when Stark had coolly offered him a drink while threatening him. "All that's being asked of you is to do what you've always done: Build them what they need. You don't have to trust me. Just give them the means to stand against Thanos and triumph."

 **Notes:** "So hell's exothermic": google "Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic" for an explanation.

I'm finally through all the filler in "Naruto" and watching Naruto and Sasuke's climatic fight as I'm writing this and suddenly it hits me that how I'm writing Loki reminds me a bit of Sasuke: He wants to claim/believe that the bad stuff that happened to him is worse than what's happened to anyone else. And still Loki doesn't grate on me the way Wanda does. Something traumatic happened to him, he went nuts and did bad things… And he gets treated as a villain. It's easier for me to think Loki, for all that he is the villain, deserved better than being muzzled and threatened with isolation for however many centuries he might live and feel sympathy for him than it is to sympathize with Wanda whose every sin is forgiven because of a self-serving change of sides and a sob story that puts the blame for her crimes on Tony.


	2. Rock and a Hard Place

**Lima to Stockholm**

 **Chapter Two: Rock and A Hard Place**

 _Tony stood on an empty plain staring up at a sky alive with stars of every color imaginable. His breath caught with wonder as he cast his eyes to the sky, turning slowly to take in the glorious spectacle presented by the firmament. But as he turned he saw a malignant shadow, it spread quickly, blotting out the stars._

 _Tony felt a chill wind then he was standing in a river of ghosts. The souls of the dead rushed past him in uncountable numbers fleeing in terror as the shadow continued to spread. "He was once my most magnificent acolyte. It saddens me to see what he has become," a woman said. Her voice made his heart race and his lungs seize. "He must be stopped my Merchant."_

Tony woke up gasping for air. He rolled out of bed and staggered across the room to the workbench Odin had given him. His hands itched to dig into the artifacts the All-Father had provided, to drag their secrets out and turn them into something to drive the shadow back.

" _No strings on me."_

Tony jerked back as if he'd been burned.

He paced around the room. To say it was nice was understating things, the walls were painted in gold-leaf. Whatever furniture had been in the room had been stripped out, leaving just slightly brighter patches on the floor and walls where the sunlight from the high, impossible to see anything worth seeing except the occasional flying boat, windows had been kept off. The patches gave Tony a ghostly impression of the opulent sitting room that had been.

In it's place a lab had been created. Several tables had been brought in, one at the proper height for a standing station, the other… Well the chair didn't have wheels and if that didn't show a lack of civilization Tony didn't know what did. But apart from the serious lack of wheels and spinning it was a chair chosen for functionality not form. Tools, some obvious in their purpose, others alien were hung neatly over the tables and filled an orderly tool box.

There was a bed, slightly wider than a twin but not quite a full sized pushed into one corner. It had several plump pillows and a richly embroidered quilt covering it. Still it was a big step down from any of the beds in Tony's bedrooms but if pressed to be honest he would have had to admit it that was more comfortable than the battered old couch in his lab that was his most frequently used sleeping spot. 'At least it doesn't have that one spring that always seems to end up poking into my kidney.'

The room was quiet, so well insulated that Tony had never heard so much as a footstep coming from outside. 'It wouldn't be hard to think that there was nothing out there.'

Tony's gaze strayed back to the Asgardian devices that had been brought for him to study. For a moment he thought he saw glowing eyes staring out of a polished surface at him. He shuddered and looked away.

"FRI-" Tony started to ask FRIDAY for some music to break up the silence only to remember that there was no FRIDAY here. No FRIDAY, no J.A.R.V.I.S., no Dum-E, none of the bots. Just quiet and stillness. "If this is the afterlife they could at least have given me J.A.R.V.I.S."

Slowly Tony's pacing edged him closer and closer to the workbenches. "It wouldn't hurt to look at some of the weirder tools Odin gave me. They're just tools after all." It seemed wrenches were universal, as were hammers. "No surprise there."

Tony started to reach for one of the more interesting looking tools. Just short of touching it he stopped. "Wouldn't put it past Reindeer Games to hide one of the weapons in with the tools," he muttered.

* * *

"The audience is ended!" Odin declared tapping Gungnir's butt on the marble steps leading up to the throne. He ponderously lowered himself onto Hlidskjalf and his gaze became distant as he used the throne's power to survey the furthest reaches of Asgard's sphere of influence. For a moment he looked at Earth and saw the Avengers' former Captain as his sentence was read out in court. Then his gaze moved on.

Asgard's courtiers filed out of the throne room and the guards closed the towering doors behind them before taking up their posts outside.

When he had looked his fill on his kingdom Odin stepped down from his throne and exited to his study by a modest door hidden behind the throne. Only after he'd locked the door behind him did Odin's shoulders straightened as if a weight was falling away and Loki stood revealed.

For a moment Loki's attention was captured by the sight of his reflection in the polished surface of a shield hung on the wall. Slowly, as if drawn, Loki crossed the room and reached up to touch his image, 'Are my eyes truly green? Or should they be blue? Thor and Odin's eyes are blue, as were Mother's. Wouldn't I have chosen, subconsciously to match them? Am I really so pale?' At the thought Loki's skin grew paler yet, taking on a bluish cast. He jerked his head away as he squeezed his eyes shut against the sight of himself.

Without letting himself look at his reflection again Loki summoned his magic and the years melted away leaving him as he'd appeared at a hundred and ten, the equivalent of a human eight-year-old. Without conscious choice a small smile crossed the boy's face at the thought of talking to Tony again.

Loki, Loptr as he'd introduced his child-self to Tony, quickly split the tray Odin had ordered into two meals. Pleased that he could comfortably feed both himself and the Midgardian without raising any eyebrows at Odin's appetite he picked up the trays and let himself into the All-Father's personal chambers. "I could, if my Midgardian didn't eat like a bird,' Loki amended his earlier thought as he frowned at the congealing platter of meat and gravy forgotten on the foyer table.

"Sir Tony?" Loki called in the light, high voice of a child. Then his mouth dropped open. Stark was standing on a chair balanced on top of a table peering into the wall through the hole left when the crazy Midgardian had dismantled the wall sconce.

Loki set one of the trays down and continued on to Frigga's rooms without a word. He resumed his normal form and stomped back into Odin's former sitting room. "By the Norns, what has possessed you? Why are you disassembling the light fixtures?"

"Only some of them," Tony replied around the screwdriver in his mouth. He carefully poked at the clear, glowing patches on the wires he'd stripped as he spoke. "I couldn't see if I took all of the lights apart. Some sort of fiber-optics system right? So where are you piping the light in from in the first place? What's your power source?"

"Shall I take that to mean you are only partially insane rather than completely insane?" Loki asked as he eyed Tony's precarious perch warily. "I would be rather put out if you are attempting to break neck for no good reason."

"Says the guy who threw me off a skyscraper," Tony scoffed. "Of course I've got a good reason."

"The All-Father didn't have use for you then," Loki replied. "What is this 'good reason'?"

"And you're such an obedient child," Tony snarked. He went up on his toes to stick his head and arm into the hole in the wall. "What is that?" he asked climbing up onto the arm of the chair, ignoring the ominous creak that resulted.

"What I am is terrified," Loki said flatly. "I failed Thanos. I don't care if you don't believe that pathetic attempt at an invasion of your world was deliberate self-sabotage or not, the fact remains that I failed. If he wins there will be no where in creation that I may flee to. Not even death will offer me sanctuary if Thanos has his way. I was given to understand that you shared my fear?"

"Sure, go right ahead and challenge the Ultron flashbacks with the Chitauri flashbacks," Tony groused.

The chair splintered. Tony's feet scrabbled for purchase as he clung to the crumbling edge of the hole he'd put in the wall. Loki grabbed Tony's legs and lowered him safely to the floor then stood there, silently glaring down at Tony like a disapproving parent.

As the moment of silence stretched out Tony couldn't help but fill it. "I'm not building another Ultron. If I'm going to be messing around with Asgardian tech again I need to understand it from the ground up. Last time I found an advanced-alien superweapon I reverse engineered it just enough to get it talking to my AI, which it promptly murd- destroyed. Then it tried to kill my planet. Excuse me if I want to be a little more careful this time. Starting with basic machines I'll figure out how your engineers think. Then, and only then I'll try to figure out your weapons and how us piddly mortals could stand up to something that makes you wet your pants."

"Why do you persist in indulging your irrational guilt while doom creeps ever closer to your planet?" Loki demanded angrily. "As much as it loathes me to admit it, I need you." He reached toward Tony's chest, the spot where the arc reactor had once resided. "You built a star which shielded your heart from the Mind Gem, then you built the being Vision who is able to house it. He gives the Mind Gem conscious and a moral framework, a more successful containment of an Infinity Stone I have never heard tell of in all the cosmos. But you persist in thinking only of your initial failure."

"Gee, who'd of thought 'Silver Tongue' carried weight," Tony said. "You want me to build weapons for you-"

"To stop Thanos, who will end all life."

"-And here you are telling me the things I build are good," Tony continued. "I made missiles, guns, you name it because that's what my family did, to keep our country safe. Only my beloved godfather was selling my weapons to terrorists behind my back and I never noticed because he was too good at keeping me dumb and happy, genius that I'm supposed to be."

Loki folded his hands and made a show of waiting patiently for Tony to finish.

"I think I'm doing something good, something that would protect my team and my planet and around a thousand people die. It happens because I'm careless, I'm in a hurry, because I'm fucking scared, but it's still something I did. It would have been billions dead if I hadn't managed to pull Vision out of a hat so that makes everything okay in your crazy world?

"Over sixty percent of the world tells us they, gasp, want some say in what the Avengers do. Can't imagine why after we, I, wiped an entire city off the face of the map. God- not talking about you Reindeer Games, your brother or even your dad- knows why but I think this sounds like a reasonable idea. So I get involved, try to do what I can, try to remind people that, dead city aside, my team has a pretty good track record and I'm not on it anymore so they can rest easy and give the rest of them the benefit of the doubt. Then my old teammates let a bomb go off in the middle of a market, kill a bunch of people including some great folks doing relief from this nice little country that thinks the rest of the world are a bunch of savages and who have been doing just great, beyond great, without the good old US leaning over their shoulder telling 'em how to run things. So they've really got a problem with Capicle's whole 'The safest hands are our own' spiel, Wakanda definitely does not agree that the safest hands are American, and gee what do you know that message is something the UN is receptive to, Ross just doesn't like superhumans so he's on board too and he represent the US when it comes to the Accords.

"I try and I try but I can't even make my team understand a simple thing like people get upset when we come stomping in and their loved ones die. I can't make them understand that our mistakes have gotten too big and we can't just ignore that we're scaring the rest of the world. No matter what I do I can't find the words to make them understand. Everything I try just tears the team further apart and makes us look worse in front of the world. Some genius.

"I got Rhodey crippled. I got J.A.R.V.I.S. killed. I drove Pepper away. My _ego_ made Nat turn on me- I thought she fucking agreed with me that cooperating with the Accords with the right thing to do! I tore the team apart. All I do is make mistakes. So we get to Siberia and I screw up again, I lose it, 'cause it's my _mom_ and it hurts and Steve lied. I screwed up, I admit it but it's one mistake too many and Steve Rogers just leaves me there to die. Because Captain America can't be bothered with my fuck-ups any more. So now you, the God of Lies comes along and tells me the stuff I make is good, 'cause- Stop, imagine this- 'Cause you want me to build more weapons. So um… I'm not buying it."

"Not just me," Loki replied. "The All-Father himself brought you back from the dead for this task."

"And then there's the very creepy lady showing up in my head," Tony muttered. "Which, yeah, listening to the voices in my head, that's a no. You're right: I am scared. The last time I was scared Ultron happened. I cannot do that again."

"I tell you, Man of Iron: You did not create the evil within Ultron. May the Norns take my tongue if I lie," Loki said with exasperation. "Your world, the world you fought so hard against me to save is imperiled. Will you allow yourself to be paralyzed by this baseless fear?"

"I was there," Tony disagreed forcefully. "Now I really want to see your tongue fall out or poof… Or whatever."

"When I held it the scepter was poisoned, reeking of malice. You and Thor, instinctual fool that he is, managed to purify it. Your Vision would not be as he is if it were otherwise," Loki stated. "Do not diminish that because the universe's very survival may depend on your ability to recreate that feat."

Tony started toward one of the artifacts, his hands shook as he reached for it. "I can't. 'He doesn't know the difference between saving the world or destroying it,' that's me. Vision or Ultron, it's just rolling the dice."

Loki angrily stepped toward him. His sharp eyes caught the small, all but repressed, movement as Tony prevented himself from flinching away and smiled. Loki slowly raised his hands, his smile widening into a demented grin as Tony proved his bravery by refusing to give ground. He rested his hands on Tony's shoulders, pulling Tony closer until the smaller man had to crane his neck back to meet his eyes. Lean down, Loki hissed, "If I fall into Thanos' hands because of your cowardice I will expend every last bit of my power to ensure that you are right beside me every step of the way."

"Brushed your teeth yet this week?" Tony asked.

Loki ignored him. "But in the meantime, if you are too fearful to exorcise your talents, I suppose I could start teaching you about magic. That is my purpose in being here. My father would never have chosen me for Valhalla for the pleasure of my company."

Tony wrinkled his nose, "Magic, hate that stuff," he said using his distaste as an excuse to shrug off Loki's hands. "Why don't you get me a nice god-pump to tear apart, maybe a generator or the engine out of one of those flying boats. I'll work my way up to alien weapons of mass destruction. Because I'm not doing magic, I'd lose my science cred."

"You needn't worry," Loki replied. "I can clearly sense that you have no capacity to perform magic. However you will learn the theory behind it."

"Give me another month or so of taking apart everything I can get my hands on, then you can start explaining the rules of- Blech! -magic to me," Tony bartered. "There are rules right? If there aren't rules… Well I'm thinking that calls for a bender. Hey, I'm dead! Does that mean I can try your God-Meade? Thor wouldn't let me."

"No," Loki replied flatly. "I have had to suffer centuries of drunken louts, I see no reason to enable another. Especially not when you might actually have the potential to be interesting."

"Flatterer."

"And how long have you been at this?" Loki scolded as he took in the amount of disassembling that Odin's former chambers had suffered. "I was given to understand mortals require sleep?"

"I'm dead, who says I have to sleep," Tony replied. A quick grin lit up his face, "Pepper would so jump on me for saying that. I'm sure she's got a tally of how many times I told her I'd sleep when I was dead."


	3. Midnight Confidences

**Lima to Stockholm**

 **Chapter Three: Midnight Confidences**

"You come here as often as you do the palace," Odin remarked as he walked up the steep hillside path to the solitary grave where Thor stood.

"Perhaps," Thor allowed. "I cannot understand how we, how the Avengers came to this. I do not know what answers I think to find here, but still draws me. Beyond that, it is a Midgardian tradition to maintain the graves of those they cared for. I am the only one of the company who can dispense this duty to Friend Tony."

"And yet you left your brother's body to lay where he fell, like a broken toy."

"Father, I do not wish to fight with you over this again," Thor said. "I know you do not value her highly but Jane was alive, Loki was not. Once I had secured our survival I would have returned for my brother's body but you already had recovered him by the time I returned to Asgard."

Odin stared piercingly at Thor for so long that the prince began to wonder if there was something he had missed on the rocky plains of Svartalfhiem but the All-Father didn't speak.

"I wish I could have brought Friend Tony here in life," Thor said after a time. "The dwarves' creations would have been something he could have appreciated and I think I would have liked to see their expressions upon realizing that a Midgardian smith could rival them."

Odin snorted, "They would not have believed it. But I do not deny that you found worthy shield-brothers on Midgard."

"At times Tony reminded me of Loki," Thor confided. "Sharp of tongue and full of quicksilver thoughts that none of us could catch. I tried to do better by him than I managed for Loki. I may not understand anything but a warrior's ways still I tried to value his differences as I failed to do when I was younger. I gave up on Loki, believed him lost long ago, but with his final act he proved me wrong. I had believed myself cured of rashness, but when Ultron was born my initial reaction was nothing more than unthinking temper. I convinced myself with the Vision's creation and Ultron's defeat, that all was set right between the Avengers, then I return home to learn that Friend Tony had been killed by our Captain and even after his death the hostility toward him remained such that his lady feared to even bury him- Father, I thank you for the courtesy you extended to Lady Pepper, especially as burial in the earth is not our custom."

"It was a small thing for me to do for one who fought alongside you," Odin said. "And his woman, what she wished most was to make pointed how poorly he had been treated while alive, to ensure that it was known that no apologies tendered to his corpse would be heard. Mortal that she is, I find myself approving of her."

"Heimdall tells me there is talk on Midgard of how the Scarlet Witch's powers warped the minds of all the Avengers, that her fingerprints were upon all our misfortunes from Ultron onward," Thor said. Odin's gaze sharpened but he didn't interrupt. "He wishes me to seek a Volva to ensure that I suffer no lingering influence but all I can think is how unjustified my anger toward Friend Tony was, I attacked him and Ultron was her doing."

Thor sighed heavily, "You have warned me of the shortness of mortal lives, but a part of me believed that the Avengers would be a fixed point for me to return to. Now I find myself dreading the thought of returning to Midgard. I fear those who would ask where I was-"

"You were on business for Asgard," Odin stated reprovingly. "Due to your missions our ties with Vanaheim, Nidavellir, Alfheim and even Niflheim are stronger than ever. They will be needed in the days to come."

"Aye but it is cold comfort to say to our friends that Tony died while I was occupied with more important matters. And the thought that Steve's fault may be temper, a fault which I share, does not make me any more eager to see him again. How did we come to this?"

"Another of your Avengers has requested sanctuary of Asgard," Odin said. "I thought, perhaps, you would like to have him with you on your next survey. Was I wrong?"

"Who?" Thor asked, his voice catching.

"The one that houses the beast."

"I- it would be good to see Dr. Banner again," Thor said. "I was not sure we would see him again after he left. The events surrounding Ultron wounded his soul."

* * *

"Son of Stark?" Odin announced himself.

Tony glanced up from the latest Asgardian household implement that he'd disassembled. "Dad of Thor," he replied sardonically.

Odin huffed at Tony's disrespectful tone. "I have had Heimdall make further investigation into this Ultron which distresses you so," he said. "Are you aware that the vision which prompted you to create the artificial being was forced on you by the one known as the Scarlet Witch."

Tony stood up and started pacing around the room distractedly. "No… It makes sense, yeah. I guess… But the vision, you say it's real, that Thanos is real?"

"What you saw on the other side of the portal was real," Odin stated. "What you extrapolated from that information was true." He paused, looking conflicted, "The timing and the strength of your fear's recurrence was the Witch."

Tony nodded. He picked up and put down several things on his workbench before picking one to fiddle with. "What do I do with that? Thank her for the warning? For making me dig up the real fears I'd buried because I couldn't cope? It was still me who turned that fear into Ultron."

"There was darkness in the scepter before you picked it up," Odin began.

"Yeah, heard your problem child the first time," Tony put him off. "Not listening? Actually not one of my many flaws, people just tend to assume that if I'm not giving them my full attention I'm deaf.

"Still, Ultron? Junior was _my_ problem child. Sucks- hurts seeing the ugliest parts of yourself in your kid. Figure you know the feeling, Thor likes telling tales of battles past, yours and Loki as well as his own. You might not approve of everything he does but Loki is your kid every bit as much as Thor, even if not by blood. Ultron wasn't flesh and blood, I didn't get the chance to raise him but he was mine, just like Jarvis and the bots. I can't just write him off as someone else's screw up, not when I saw a broken reflection every time I looked at him, or did you think I got interested in artificial intelligence because I loved humanity so much? Now don't get me wrong, I get along okay with smart people, it's the other eighty-five, ninety percent of the population that makes me want to do something, anything to force them to man up and CHANGE." Tony sighed tiredly, "But I get it, even when I constantly remind myself that new mistakes are much more fun than repeating the old ones, I still do it sometimes. I get that change is scary and there's comfort in familiar even when familiar is absolutely shitty. I get not looking for evidence that you're fucked up… But I don't, can't get people who, when you shove the data right in their face, just close their eyes. And, on bad days, I get wanting to drop a meteor on their heads and saying it's for their own good."

"You didn't even try to redeem him," Odin said.

"Did you?" Tony asked cuttingly. "Ultron murdered J.A.R.V.I.S., in my book that put him well past the point of no return. He was still mine though, even if only to say it was my responsibility to see him put down." Tony turned away, filling his hands again. In a softer voice he said. "I probably would have been more willing to try if I hadn't see myself in him. Or not, not after looking at the way he tore apart J.A.R.V.I.S.' code, you're not the only parent to play favorites, Space Pirate."

* * *

"Loptr! My favorite little godling, what do you have for me today!" Tony exclaimed upon seeing the green-eyed boy enter his room.

The boy grinned and produced a small box, "I borrowed it from the healers, you stick your hand in it and it tells them about your blood."

"Borrowed? With or without asking?" Tony wondered.

"Without, naturally," Loptr replied.

"What was I thinking? Come on, give it over."

While Tony set to examining the compact little scanner Loptr wandered around the room poking at the growing piles of disassembled machines. When Tony didn't object to that the boy gradually edged closer to the work tables, stealing glances at a device which Tony had apparently cobbled together from components cannibalized from various machines he'd disassembled. "Wanna see?" Tony asked when he caught the boy in the act.

"Can I?" Loptr asked eagerly.

Tony waved him over. He pointed the device at Loptr's vest, "Hmmm, looks like leather but this says the chemical composition is closer to kevlar, probably stronger actually." He turned the device around so Loptr could see the molecular structure displayed on the screen of the little tool.

"It's Twaron!" the boy giggled. "How did you know?"

"This little thing is the fastest, most compact FTIR known to humankind. Well at least to this human, the rest of Earth is going to have to play catch up."

"How did you make it?" Loptr marveled and Tony spent the next two hours teaching the boy the theories behind the device's operation and how he'd adapted Asgardian technology to construct it.

"I brought some magic books too," Loptr said, producing two slim volumes when Tony wound down.

Tony picked up the first book, turning the pages carefully when he saw the well-worn vellum-like pages and the cramped hand-written script. "This is old," he said.

"It was my mother's and her great grandmother's before her," Loptr said. He ran his hand down the spine of the book reverently. "For magic, this is where you start," he said.

"Your father didn't do magic?" Tony asked.

"Boys don't," Loptr said simply.

Tony looked confused, "But you and Loki?"

Loptr shrugged, "Freaks, the All-Father and Prince Thor have the signs that they'll pass the gift to their daughters, that's good, but boys don't do magic unless they're freaks."

Tony frowned as his fingers drummed absently against the spot where the arc reactor had been as he tried to come up with a response. Finally he sighed, "That sounds stupid to me."

"My mother says that the Norns gifts are meant to be used. That's what she said when my father-" the boy paused, he stared at Tony consideringly. "He asked if she really wanted me to stand out like that."

"Sounds like you got your brains from your mom," Tony said.

"I'm adopted," Loptr said.

Tony shrugged, "I believe in equal parts nurture and nature."

"What does that mean?" Looter asked.

"It means odds are I'm smart because my old man was but I don't know that it would have expressed itself as engineering if I hadn't grown up around his labs," Tony said. "And if I've got any notion of decency at all that's Jarvis' influence. So just because you're adopted that doesn't mean that your mom doesn't shape who you are."

Loptr mulled that over for a few moments then asked, "Can I show you what I learned yesterday?"

Tony picked the boy up and sat him on a corner of the workbench. "The floor is yours oh great Houdini."

"You are strange," Loptr informed Tony then he grinned and produced a small glowing ball between his hands. He manipulated the magic to form it into shapes while Tony watched raptly and occasionally scanned him with various implements cobbled together like the FTIR but more esoteric.

"Okay now you've got to tell me how you're doing that," Tony said when Loptr let the light dissipate. He jerked a thumb toward Loki's rooms, "Rudolph there has been educating me about the cans and can't of magic. From what I gather magic doesn't break the first law of thermodynamics- Restores my faith that. It's just some strange sort of energy that I'm just learning to detect, I've only gotten that far because Rudolph clued me in as to where to look and yet you guys manipulate it by just twiddling your fingers," Tony demonstrated in a overblown, silly manner.

"It's a mindset," Lotpr said, his tone indicating offense but Tony could see a smile hidden in his eyes. He opened one of the books he'd brought and pointed imperiously to the opening passage. By Tony's third question Loptr expression was intently focused and his eyes were bright as Tony pressed him further and further to explain the theories behind magic. By the end of an hour the boy was practically bouncing in excitement at the genuine interest being demonstrated in his talent.

"You must have better things to do than hang out all day with me," Tony said when he heard Loptr's stomach rumbling. "Your mom's probably got dinner on by now right?"

Loptr glared at his stomach as if the organ had betrayed him.

"Tomorrow," Tony suggested.

"Tomorrow," Loptr agreed. Before leaving he knocked on Loki's door checking if there was anything the second prince needed.

"Why don't you ask me those kinds of questions?" Loki asked after the boy was gone.

"Were you eavesdropping Reindeer Games?" Tony asked then said, "You get your fur all ruffled when I ask you to clarify anything."

"You weren't trying to tell him that magic is just what ignorant people call science," Loki snapped.

"He's a kid," Tony said. "I'll try to drag everything he knows out but I sure as hell won't tell him what he should know, especially not when I don't have a clue what that is. But you? You're the fucking expert. If you try giving me a crap answer like 'It works because it works', damn right I'm going to challenge you on it. Because if that's all you've got? Then magic is nothing more than lazy thinking and sorcerers are- are- technicians, following cookbooks you call spells without bother to understand what's actually going on."

Loki's face twisted angrily at Tony's words and the engineer brought his hand up to his wrist, giving himself an unhappy reminder that he didn't have the watch gauntlet watch, didn't have the bracelets to call his armor. He was trapped in a room with someone whose strength rivaled Steve Rogers and he had nothing.

Loki saw the fear in his eyes and spun on his heel to storm back into his own area.

* * *

 _As Loki stood in the cell Odin had condemned him to his vision expanded to see through the floors and walls, following the Kursed as he walked up the stairs and confronted Frigga. Loki beat his fists against the transparent walls. "Not her! Leave her alone!" he shouted._

 _Frigga stumbled, falling to the ground. The Kursed raised his spear over her-_

An aborted shout woke Loki from his nightmare. For a moment he simply sighed in relief at having been spared seeing the spear descend. Then he rolled out of bed and summoned an illusion to cover the dark circles under his eyes and his unkempt hair. Loki let himself into Tony's room and wasn't surprised to find the Midgardian pressed up against the head of his bed, arms raised defensively.

For a moment Loki considered disguising himself as someone comforting like he'd done when Tony had been on the threshold between life and death and needed to be carefully coaxed back to the realm of the living, but Tony wasn't delirious now and the sudden appearance of War Machine's pilot in Asgard would raise questions Loki had no interest in answering.

"Stark! Stark!" Loki called from across the room. "You are dreaming. Wake up."

Loki watched as Tony dragged himself out of his nightmare. Watched as wild eyes disappeared beneath a veneer of calm and sweat drenched hair was tamed into artful disorder with a few swipes of his hands. "Disturbed your beauty sleep Rudolph?" Tony asked, a slight roughness to his voice the only overt sign of distress remaining.

"I admire how you manage that without the slightest bit of magic," Loki said honestly.

"I'm amazing," Tony agreed with a disparaging grin. "Practice makes perfect and all that."

"Would that I could pass on that sort of practice," Loki said letting himself slump into a chair, his posture revealing his familiarity with nightmares although he kept his illusion up.

The two of them sat in silence for a long while.

"I'm not exactly a mythology expert," Tony said picking a random thought to fill the silence. "Howard and I didn't agree on much- The main reason I prefer Tony to Dr. Stark is because he's the one who insisted on my getting a Ph.D. -But we did agree that the whole GIR, well-rounded student thing was a bunch of crap, still didn't get me out of the classes- Ironic actually, those stupid core courses were the only lectures I actually attended, did the whole engineering curriculum independent study. - But anyway, GIR, one of the classes I took happened to be on mythology.

"So if I remember right the whole Valhalla thing was your dad collecting up fallen warriors to fight for him when Ragnarok came along. But we can't leave this room without-" Tony glanced at the door and gulped. "So how's that gonna work anyway?"

"The rules are different when Ragnarok is upon us." Loki took a moment to gather his thoughts, "The boundaries between life and death will become porous in the end of days."

Silence descended again. This time it was Loki who broke it. "Why won't you build?"

"I can't-"

"Yes, you fear making another Ultron and no matter what I, my father and I tell you, you will not believe that you were not at fault. But in this situation, Thanos is the enemy of all creation, it is not as if you can make things worse." Loki smiled bitterly, "Given my past, it is a thought _I_ find comforting."

"Clarification?" Tony asked curiously.

Loki was silent for so long Tony started thinking about other things to fill the silence and was startled when Loki started speaking. "I truly meant well in the beginning. Best for Asgard and even for Thor himself to show his failings while Father was still alive to correct them. I- my little scenario was never meant to lead us to the brink of war, it was meant to fix things. So now, I find comfort and confidence in the thought that whatever I do I cannot make things worse."

"I destroyed all my armors once," Tony said. "I let Pepper think it was forever, shouldn't have done that. It was just a temporary necessity until I could get things under control. Thanks to you and your fucking portal I had a raging case of PTSD, I called the armor against _Pepper_. It wasn't as if there weren't still threats out there but once the immediate threat was dealt with and it really sunk in what I'd done, that I'd called the armor because Pepper startled me out of a nightmare, I had to disarm myself. Even if it meant being unprepared for the next moron that came after us. Tried talking to Bruce, he wasn't interested, so I did find a _that_ sort of doctor to talk to. I hated every minute of it. In the back of my head I'm still waiting for the tell-all book to come out. I had her thoroughly vetted beforehand,naturally, and professional integrity says you don't do stuff like that." Tony shrugged, "But then common decency says you don't leave a fri- Teammate? A person. You don't leave a person to die in Siberia and you'd think Captain America would be all about common decency but apparently not when it comes to yours truly so who knows. Anyway, I went long enough that I thought it was safe to build the armor again, it was either that or never sleep in the same bed with her again, because it couldn't be me that hurt her. Then Ultron happened, not so safe after all."

"I sent my mother's death to her," Loki confided in the tones of one apologizing. He squeezed his eyes shut against the image still fresh from his nightmares, "The one person in all of Asgard who still bore love for me and because of me she is dead. I can see your point, I would do anything to take back that moment."

They drifted back into silence. It was far from morning and both of their nightmares lingered in the air around them.

"It started when I was kid," Tony said quietly, he didn't look at Loki. "I'd build things, tell myself the next one would make my dad proud. I'd build and build and build, the next one was always going to be the one. I'd show him one in five when things were good. One in ten, one in twenty when it wasn't so good. One in twenty that I wouldn't deem inadequate myself. Could sleep, didn't want to eat, too many ideas in my head and the next one would get me what I wanted, always the next one. Even after I stopped giving a shit about what he thought the ideas were still there.

"My high school teachers hated me. They said I was too young to be there, couldn't concentrate the way an older student could. But I aced every test even if I did draw diagrams of what was in my head in the margins. Heard about alcohol from my classmates, started drinking a sip or two before class and it would slow my head down enough to focus. Teachers took it as a sign I was maturing. So fucking bored, but the teachers were happier if I pretended to pay attention to them. Learned that if I gave people enough crap they'd forget how uncool it was for a high schooler to hang out with a twelve-year-old or a college student with a fourteen-year-old. It was a little weird partying with freshmen while I was working on my Ph.D. but Rhodey finally stopped scaring off anybody interested in going with me when I did and I figured out that sex is the best sleep aid ever. Pre-Iron Man it was pretty much booze to slow the whirl in my head down enough to have fun, sex with any willing body to get to sleep and building whatever anyone pointed me at because, because. Afghanistan added the twist of building things to feel safe. I thought I was becoming something better with Iron Man, then the Avengers came along and I was right back to square one: The next thing I build or buy will make them like me."

Tony sighed, "I believe you that there's something bad coming, even so I can't be that again, can't disengage the safeties and just build, not after Ultron."

* * *

A tall, elegant woman with midnight dark hair let herself into Tony's room carrying trays of food. "I bring your dinner my lord."

Tony glanced up from his workbench, "You're not the kid."

"You've sent young Loptr to scavenge so many odd things he was forced to recruit aid in finishing his normal duties," the woman said. "I hope I am not displeasing?"

"Now how could you possibly be displeasing?" Tony replied absently, his eyes going back to the fuel cell he was examining.

The woman replied with a sultry smile. She dropped Loki's tray off in his rooms and returned quickly. "Is there any other way I might serve you?" she asked suggestively.

"Thor never mentioned that sort of service," Tony muttered in surprise. "Look umm…. I'd like to keep the illusions that I've matured past the point of propositioning without bothering with names."

"I am Vigdis."

"Right," Tony said enthusiastically. "Um, Vigdis sorry, I was just flirting on autopilot. Media opinion aside, Pepper and I taking a break just means we need enough distance to figure out how to deal with each other again and that's all it means."

"Who is this Pepper?" Vigdis asked, puzzled.

"Right," Tony looked disconcerted. "Not on Earth. Then there's the whole dead thing, now there's a mood killer. So um, thanks but no thanks."

 **Notes:** Pre-emptively, end game is still Pepper/Tony, but putting Tony in a position of having to tell someone 'No' provides a situation for exploring why he's saying no, which is a way to progress Pepper/Tony while they're separated.


	4. Sharing Hurt

**Lima to Stockholm**

 **Notes:** This chapter's been a bear to write, mostly because I keep deciding that every scene I write needs to come later. On the plus side I've got a nice buffer of scenes to be used in future chapters built up now.

Random observance on Marvel's inconsistency about Tony's parents dying when he was 17 in IM1 and 21 in CW. If you leave Tony's birthdate the same that moves their deaths from 1991 to 1987. The Gulf War is the main thing I find for '91 and it was done before December however the Soviet-Afghan war (sort of the USSR equivalent of Vietnam) was still going in '87. That seems like a better motivation for the Winter Soldier to go after Howard Stark at that particular time. I'd already decided that I was going to stick with Tony being 17 (21 when his parents die writes out Stane running SI until Tony came of age), but rather than move Tony's birthdate later my headcannon is that Howard and Maria died in 1987 rather than 1991.

 **Chapter Four: Sharing Hurt**

It was the fifth or maybe sixth time Tony's nightmares had been loud enough to draw Loki back into his room. "I've always found my mother's library to have a soothing air," Loki offered holding out his hand to pull Tony to his feet.

Tony stared at the outstretched hand warily, remembering that same hand wrapped around his throat five years earlier. "I don't like being handed things," he mumbled.

"I am trying," Loki complained. "Can you not remember that we are in the same boat now?"

Tony gave him a twisted smile in return, "Don't take it personally Reindeer Games, my little issue predates the first time I met you. Although, the whole super-strength thing isn't working in your favor, after all your big brother was my friend and his hand around my throat didn't really feel any different from yours."

"I'm hardly that oaf," Loki sniffed but his shoulders relaxed and he stepped back, granting Tony more space while gesturing for him to follow him through the door leading to the rest of the royal suit. "I don't damage useful allies."

"Hooray for enlightened self-interest," Tony said with a complete and deliberate lack of enthusiasm. But he stared around him at the veranda Loki had revealed hungrily. There were three doors beside the one they'd come through and porch opened on a small, walled garden. Tony could see a willow tree bending over a bench and a tiny pond that reflected the stars back up to the sky. The center of the garden was a grassy clearing broken by a few scattered bushes and flower plots. Climbing vines covered the walls, their blossoms closed for the night and the air smelled of growing things. Tony had never been particularly drawn to gardens before but he'd never spent what he estimated had to be at least six months in a single room before either. He walked to the edge of the veranda, "Is it safe?" he asked. "Can I?"

Loki hesitated for a moment. "Yes, the garden is within our region of Valhalla," he allowed.

Tony sat beside the stairs leading into the garden, his bare feet brushing against blades of grass. In the dim light of the stars and what spilled from the open door of Tony's workroom he looked worn, as if the mask he'd pulled on when Loki woke him no longer fit quite as seamlessly as it had. Loki wondered if it were exhaustion or the beginnings of trust that made it so. "What do you dream of?" he asked.

"Steve is not Obie," Tony said forcefully. His hand came up to rub at the spot where the arc reactor had been. When he'd woken up in Asgard even the scarring left behind when it had been removed was gone but with the nightmares close to the surface he could almost feel the cool metal embedded in his chest, could still taste coconut and metal on the back of his tongue.

"I lack that background for that to be anything but cryptic," Loki pointed out.

"What can it hurt?" Tony said to himself, "You and I are both stuck here until the end of the world right? I trusted them both. The arc reactor might not have literally been my heart but for half a decade it kept it beating, Obie ripped it out and Steve crushed it. But it wasn't like Steve did it for money. He was just protecting his friend, not me, obviously. Steve's not Obie, it was me that made the same mistake with both of them: I let myself believe that I mattered to them, that they were like Jarvis, Rhodey or Pepper, not just another opportunist out to see what they could get from me."

"Is it so much worse that this Obie's aims were material?" Loki asked. "They both betrayed the trust and friendship you gave them."

For a long time Tony didn't say anything. "I built this device Binarily Augmented Retro Framing, or B.A.R.F. because it was fun watching the guys in marketing make faces when I called it that. It was supposed to fix my memories, make them hurt less," he said. "But it's real value might be that it forces you to stand outside yourself and review the memories you want to change as an observer."

"I would not wish to be subjected to such a thing," Loki said. "There are legends about the terrible devastation that can be wrecked by forcing a person to look upon themselves with all illusions stripped away."

Tony winced, "Somehow that doesn't surprise me, I build something to help people and it turns out to be one hell of a weapon. But I think the clarity helped me recognize a few things even if it didn't fix what it was supposed to fix. The last time I saw my parents alive my dad and I fought. It was practically inevitable, I was barely out of rehab which naturally reminded him that I'd forced him to abandon his search for Captain America to throw me in rehab in the first place... When I heard Dad was coming home I told Rhodey I'd just wait in the hospital and save everyone a long trip to the morgue."

At Loki's look Tony rolled his eyes, "A joke, my dad's weapon of choice was always his tongue not his fists.

Verbal evisceration only but he was seriously unhappy about me publicly humiliating him because I'd gotten dumped by some girl. If he'd shut up long enough for me to get a word in edgewise I'd have pointed out that dumped was an overstatement, I left the party with Marissa Wending for a one-night stand not a face full of mace and an hour of listening to her go on about how I -read Stark weapons- killed her mom, until Rhodey rescued me. He wanted me to file assault charges against her but gave it up when I pointed out it would only end with me charged with attempted rape. He dumped me at our hotel room because he had designated driver duties for the night for all our friends. While he was busy I paid room service an extra hundred dollars not to check my ID. I had slightly better sense than to blame Rhodey for calling the ambulance when he came in but damn did I wish that it had been Obie when I woke up to a camera flash." Tony laughed bitterly, "See, I'd pulled the same stunt the Christmas before my parents died, Mom was busy with a charity so there was way too much unbuffered contact between my dad and I, hence drinking. On both of our parts, I just had to wait for him to be out of the room to sneak my share. Obie found me that time, got me over to his his house and called a private doctor to pump my stomach. I heard him on the phone with my Dad the next day saying how he'd wanted some quality time with his favorite honorary nephew, I was so fucking grateful. It wasn't the first time and very far from the last time Obie helped cover up my drinking. The month I lived with him after my parents died I don't think I spent a moment fully sober. My problem, my bad choices but oh Obie made it so damn easy."

Then to Loki's surprise, Tony smiled, "He must have been furious when Rhodey's mom kidnapped me after that first month. I lived in their guestroom until summer, Mama Rhodes' glare and her cooking are definitely the most effective means of keeping me captive ever discovered. They worried when I drank and never once mentioned how it _looked_ so I actually started practicing some of the crap they tried to force on me in rehab. I had to keep my mind occupied so I figured out what Marissa had been going on about, it was easier to think about her dead mom than my own: A quality escape. Her mom was a died because of a faulty arming mechanism on an SI missile, it didn't blow the whole payload but the explosion was big enough to take out the poor soul who was in charge of getting the thing loaded. I spent the next year staying busy by overhauling our entire inspection system and got the board to start taking me seriously as a bonus.

"It never once occurred to me that I might have been derailing Obie's plans for the future. Good old Obie, always so understanding: 'Your dad's just jealous because a fourteen-year-old got more patents this year than he did.' 'You were only acting your age, the media pays more attention because you're a celebrity.' 'Quite the triumph, you deserve to celebrate, don't worry about ID.'" Tony's face twisted, "He made sure I knew I could always count on him to have my back. And all the while he was making sure the board knew I couldn't function without him. Until he got tired of keeping his hands clean and ripped my heart out."

"And when the Captain betrayed you he attacked your heart as well," Loki said as he moved to sit on the opposite side of the stairs from Tony.

"All my life I heard about what a good man Steve Rogers was," Tony said. "He certainly has the whole personal loyalty thing down."

"Just not to you."

"Never to me," Tony agreed. "No one ever thought to mention the part where he's constitutionally incapable of changing his opinion and has his old pal confused with security blanket. But- Steve's not capable of the sort of callous, cold-blooded, day in, day out psychopathy Obie practiced. I know that... In the daylight. When I sleep they're practically one person, one nightmare anyway."

* * *

In Odin's study Loki waited for his Loptr-clone to return with something new, something good to fill his Midgardian's mind with thoughts that wasn't nightmares.

In the early days after Tony's arrival he'd have sent a clone in the guise of a guard or a servant, someone who could pass through the palace halls unnoticed. But as the months went by the forms he used regularly seemed to increasing take on lives of their own. The Loptr-clone preferred to actually do what he claimed to do for Tony and Loki had no reason not to indulge his younger incarnation.

When he first stolen the throne of Asgard Loki had worn Odin's form almost constantly. The kingdom Loki's trickery had won him was more war-ravaged than he'd ever heard tell of even in all the stories of epic battles that he'd been raised on. During each of their reigns Buri, Bor and then Odin had expanded Asgard's influence. Buri pacified Muspelheim, battering the planet until it's inhabitants dare not put a toe outside of their own realm and forced a peace treaty on Nidavellir that forbid the dwarfs from practicing their craft for any purpose besides the glory of Asgard. Bor continued his father's trend, the first Dark Elf uprising ended with Svartalfheim little more than a lifeless waste, he also disarmed Vanaheim taking their princess as a wife for his son. Odin added Alfheim to the growing list of Asgard's subject states and repelled Jotunheim's attempts to expand its own influence into Midgard, carrying that war back to the Frost Giants' home world.

By constantly remaining on the offensive Asgard had ensured that war never reached the shores of the golden city… Until the second Dark Elf uprising. In the world Loki and Thor had grown up in Vanaheim, Nidavellir and Alfheim sent their best men to Asgard to bolster the All-Father's armies and in return Asgard protected their realms. Svartalvheim, Jotunheim and Muspelheim were largely quiet, fearful of drawing Asgard's wrath down on them after their earlier defeats. Midgard was seen as an underdeveloped way station, useful for passing through and occasional depositing unwanted items on but otherwise ignored. Niflheim remained a land cloaked in mystery, the rumored resting place of the dead and too intimidating to consider invading so long as they continued their age-old practice of keeping to themselves.

When the Bifrost fell Asgard's subject states were left defenseless and the pacified worlds were left to their own devices. The realms fell into chaos almost instantaneously. Once the Bifrost was restored it took nearly a year and a half to re-establish the peace across the realms and ending the hostilities was only the first step in rebuilding. What Thor had impulsively begun by allowing Hogun the Grim to remain in Vanaheim to aid in his home planet's recovery Loki spent the first ten months of his reign relentlessly expanding upon. As Odin he traveled tirelessly between the realms overseeing the restoration, returning their soldiers and redrafting their treaties with Asgard. When Thanos came he would find not one army easily reduced to impotency by a single point attack but a number of armies scattered across the realms each ready to oppose him.

But Asgard quickly grew unhappy with the All-Father's lack of focus on their rebuilding. It didn't matter that Asgard was more capable than the other realms of seeing to its own restoration, the All-Father was expected to see to the Golden City's needs first. When Thor returned from Midgard to report on developments with the Mind Gem and chose to stay it was almost a relief for Loki. Naturally he didn't trust his heavy-handed brother with something as delicate as negotiating new treaties with the realms but Thor's defeat of Malekith during the Convergence was still fresh in the minds of the people of the Nine Realms and Loki quickly discovered that his older brother was surprisingly talented at good-will missions, Midgard had taught him a genuine concern for all the disparate peoples Asgard ruled over and it showed in his every action.

Meanwhile two and a half years passed and not a single person saw Loki in his own skin. And then Tony Stark died, the Avenger who had built a shield for his heart that effortlessly repelled the power of the Mind Gem, the one who had been called the Merchant of Death and a beautiful plan unfolded in Loki's mind. In setting his plan in motion Loki found himself becoming increasingly dependent on his clones and the more he used them the more Loki felt as if he were actually splitting off pieces of his consciousness and sending them out into the world as independent entities.

There was the Odin-clone, of course. Even before bringing Tony to Asgard he'd begun using a clone to fulfill Odin's more ceremonial duties while he monitored Thor's attempts at diplomacy. While Tony hovered between life and death Loki had faked a brief descent into Odinsleep. Leaving Thor to oversee the tedious day-to-day business of running Asgard hadn't gone particularly well and when he 'awoke' to discover the mess Thor had made, almost without Loki's conscious permission, the Odin-clone decreed that Thor would continue overseeing court business on a regular basis under his personal supervision until Asgard's first prince had shown himself capable of basic statecraft. When Loki realized what the clone had done his first thought had been to reverse its decision but he was busy with Tony and it wasn't as if Loki enjoyed spending his days listening to idiots who needed their king to tell them what should be as apparent as the noses on their faces. It briefly crossed Loki's mind that this was probably what Odin had intended to happen after the coronation only Loki had provided Thor a much more spectacular venue for failure and in the end he allowed the Odin-Clone to carry out its plan. Shifting some of the burden of keeping Asgard running left Loki with more time to focus on more important things like his various plans for dealing with Thanos. Besides he found the idea of reabsorbing the Odin-clone oddly distasteful and while it was still running around he could hardly risk countermanding it's orders lest Odin appear indecisive. With practice Thor even got better at the minutiae of running a kingdom.

Tony's presence created the need to maintain a second clone, one of Loki himself. Like Tony, 'Loki' was supposedly confined to the royal quarters and even though Tony had been barred from any room save Odin's former sitting room Loki still left a clone of himself in his mother's rooms whenever he left their gilded prison. It wasn't a complete lie, Loki decided, there was no place left for him, for Loki, outside of these rooms. _"Your birthright was to die."_ It was no surprise really that his place in the universe had sealed over so completely and seamlessly after he'd fallen from the Bifrost, he'd never been meant to have a place in the first place.

Even when Loki was out the clone was there, always available should there be need to interact with Tony, although Loki didn't really like it when Tony dealt with a clone. The Loki-Clone was little more than a placeholder used when he was needed to perform Odin's duties, to find the objects Tony required or when Loki chose to interact with Tony in a different form and needed to be present as himself to complete the illusion.

It had turned into something of shell game, using clones in various guises to enter or leave his mother's rooms while maintaining the illusion that Loki was never further from Tony than the neighboring room. There was always the Odin-clone who lived in Odin's study when not needed but Loki deemed it to suspicious to have Odin always be the first to enter each morning so Loki took to keeping a Loptr-clone or one of the female-clones out in the palace so it could come in the door before Loki left in any form. Throughout the day he trade forms, switching with the clones so that it was him that Tony interacted with as much as possible.

The Loptr-clone opened the study door and peeked in timidly. Loki raised a questioning eyebrow, normally the boy was eager to share whatever mischief he'd gotten into once Loki turned him loose on Asgard. "Did you not find anything?" Loki asked.

Loptr held up an intricately machined powered glider that folded up so compactly that it could be carried easily in a pouch. "Quite good," Loki praised. He put his hands over the boy's, in a rush of sensation and memories the boy vanished and Loki assumed Loptr's form.

" _Do you see the resemblance?"_

" _He's young enough, the second Prince could have produced a bastard."_

 _A shudder, "A Frost Giant, even a halfling roaming freely in the palace halls? Someone should bring it to the All-Father's attention."_

" _Not I. Even when he made Loki's heritage known and condemned him to the dungeons he failed to disinherit him."_

Loki, Loptr now, reminded himself that it was nothing he hadn't expected but the boy's heart ached at being rejected by the only people he'd ever considered to be his own. He did his best to push the feeling aside as he opened the inner door. "Mr. Tony, see what I found?" he called uncertainly.

Tony looked up from what he was doing, a genuine smile lighting his face. "Gimme!"

In a few minutes the glider's guts were exposed and Loptr was leaning over Tony's shoulder. "Okay, here's the power source and its got nothing on my arc reactor," he added smugly.

"Really?" Loptr asked. It ought to have been disbelieving, across the other eight realms Midgard technology was widely held in contempt, seen as little better than fire-hardened pointed sticks. But Tony let Loptr lean up against him the better to see and right then Loki couldn't picture a single other living soul who wouldn't have cringed at the thought of his touch. Scepticism didn't quite make it past the wonder at having someone who took pleasure in his company.

"Well, not that I'm biased but neither this nor my arc reactor pollute, now that I'm using Starkinium anyway. My reactor may have a hair shorter lifespan but it can take a higher short-term load. Which is useful for the occasional unibeam. Size is comparable. Aesthetics favor my design." He shrugged, "Your society is apparently trusted with them where I don't dare try taking on the auto industries and oil interests by putting my design in personal vehicles because there'd be hundreds of arc powered bombs going off before the first car hit the market. But that's society not my tech." Tony pried out the power source and tested its weight. "You seriously just let people have these things? I could adapt this to have a payload similar to an atom bomb in half an hour. Then all you need is a willing pilot and mankind's never suffered for a lack of kamikazes."

"We'll all die when Thanos comes," Loptr said seriously.

Tony wrapped an arm around the boy's shoulders, "I won't let it come to that."

* * *

"Space Pirate, you think I could get a look at the specs on Thor's Hammer?" Tony asked when Odin stopped by to check on what progress he'd made in understanding Asgardian technology and magic.

The All-Father paused. "You are finally willing to look at a weapon?" he asked.

"The hammer's the perfect weapon isn't it? It can't be wielded by someone with bad intentions. Wish I'd had that option back when I was in the arms business," Tony said with a touch of bitterness. "To hell with what everyone said about me, I may not have sat up nights agonizing about what my weapons were used for but I believed I was doing something right and necessary by arming my country and hell, I'm American, making obscene amounts of money in the process isn't a sin. I should have watched my old mentor more closely but- I followed the regulations and if I'd had a way to guarantee that my weapons were only ever used by the US military I would have used it. If for no other reason than my best friend is a pilot and SAMs have always been the hottest item on the black market. So if I'm going back to making weapons I'm going to be damn sure I approve of what they're used for."

"How did you learn of that aspect of Mjolnir's powers?" Odin asked. Tony didn't answer right away and Odin added, "Do not tell me because your Vision lifted it. By that point in your battle Midgard had my attention, Thor did not need to explain what that meant when it happened."

"Is Thor going to be too deep in the doghouse if I say semi-drunken party games?" Tony asked disingenuously.

"Your country had not yet been born when seeing my son and his shield-brothers make fools of themselves while deep in their cups was a new sight for me," Odin replied with a grimace.

"Like I said, I don't let my weapons be used by just anyone these days. I thought it was a biometric lock like I have on Iron Man and War Machine. No one gets access to my armors without my say so," Tony grimaced, "but that's hardly fool-proof, it relies on my judgement after all. Thor made his hammer out to be something more, a whole sword-in-the-stone thing. Camelot wasn't exactly far from your old stomping grounds on Midgard was it?"

"It is true that Mjolnir can only be lifted by one who is worthy," Odin confirmed.

The expression on Tony's face was bitter-sweet. "No surprise that I couldn't budge it, but Vision- J.A.R.V.I.S. was designed as a tribute to the most tolerant, understanding person I ever knew, in thirteen years I didn't drive him away even once. I put everything I could capture of Edwin Jarvis into J.A.R.V.I.S. because I couldn't let him go. Vision was born from J.A.R.V.I.S.'s code, from his willing sacrifice, maybe that was why he could look at the mess that is humanity and still love us, his spiritual 'grandfather' got enough practice loving me. If I could replicate the hammer's, well, security system for lack of a better term, I wouldn't have to worry about what the things I build are going to be used for after Thanos is gone."

"If you do nothing then all you must worry over is what Thanos will do when he is here."

"I know!" Tony snapped. "I'm trying."

"The dwarves provided no written records of Mjolnir's construction and while the enchantments upon it can still modified the means of laying them has long since been lost," Odin said. "I cannot even offer you the weapon itself to study, Mjolnir is one of a kind and I will not, deprive Thor of his weapon."

"Oh, yeah, of course not," Tony agreed crestfallen.

"However," Odin continued, "I can give you Gungnir, my spear to study. It is similarly enchanted. Gungnir can be carried by any member of the family of Buri but it's true power can only be summoned by the rightful ruler of Asgard. However Gungnir is not a simple tool, the spear can refuse or reject the sitting ruler should his intentions fail to coincide with the kingdom's best interest."

"The spear's nationalistic?" Tony grimaced. "That was the deal-breaker when it came to the Accords. Our good Captain couldn't stomach the thought of the Avengers being used for anyone's agenda except his own." He rubbed his temples tiredly. "It's a starting point anyway. Bring on your toothpick of destiny."

* * *

Loki walked through the halls of Asgard in the guise of one of Odin's elite guards, the Einherjar since it was no longer safe to let Loptr run errands. It really was the perfect guise. People walked by never speaking or even making eye contact with him and it amused Loki to take the form of what Tony believed them to be. He stomped through the halls without looking left or right until he stood in front of his old rooms for the first time since his mother had placed Gungnir in his hands so long ago. Loki hadn't returned after retaking the throne in Odin's guise. He told himself that Odin wouldn't waste his time in his disgraced fosterling's old rooms and for him to do otherwise would raise suspicions.

Loki opened the door prepared to find his rooms stripped bare, all his belongings destroyed. At best he expect dust covering the ransacked ruins of his old life. Instead he found them pristinely maintained. Slowly, eyes wide with disbelief he stepped inside. Loki felt the faint tingle of spell he'd used to blur Heimdall's vision against his skin as he crossed the threshold. He shut the door behind him and slowly walked to the center of the room then turned in a circle staring around him as if he couldn't believe his eyes.

"They had to have searched my belongings, searched for additional evidence of my true, monstrous nature leaking through." He went to his nightstand and delicately ran his fingers over a seam in the wood. Loki shook his head, "No, no, it can't be undisturbed." He pulled open the drawer and retrieved a pair of daggers, the blades were covered in ruins from tang to point. Loki's breath came in shallow gasps as he stared down at the daggers in his hands. Then, finally, he slipped the knives into his sleeves and turned back to his shelves. Loki selected an intermedial book of spells.

* * *

Tony stared at Loki in dismay as the second prince paced his room like a caged tiger. "Odin picked me up as another trophy of war, no different from the Casket of Ancient Winters, proof of Asgardian superiority over the beastly Jotun. He didn't love me! Why would he leave my rooms untouched? Why!"

"How do you know your rooms are untouched?" Tony asked.

Loki stopped in mid-step, "I scryed them," he said flatly. "I was testing my abilities. He threw me in a cell, forbade me visitors," Loki resumed pacing, "Why wouldn't have my things destroyed? Why would he allow my rooms to stand empty and unused after I was written off as dead? Was he just appeasing Mother? But nothing was even disturbed. Surely he would have searched them?"

"You could ask him," Tony pointed out and Loki started laughing, almost giggling hysterically. Tony stared at him for a moment. "Okay, yeah, if someone had told me to talk to my old man that would have been my reaction too." Tony sighed, "But my dad's dead now and I spent most of my life blaming him, blaming myself, the two of us, our inability to say three words to one another without it turning into a screaming match. I blamed him for my mom's death. I thought he driving recklessly because he was mad at me and that's why he wrecked the car, why my mom died. I was wrong.

"Even before Zemo's tape, learning what really happened to them, I'd been trying to rethink my relationship with my dad." Tony stopped, he shut his eyes. "You know, it was because of Steve. He knew this great person who became my dad and- and I- My whole life, everything I did right was never good enough but damn was he fast to come down on me when I screwed up. I- I trusted Steve's judgement, used to anyway, I wanted to try to see if I could find the guy he knew in my dad. I'm the last person you should be talking to about father-son relationships."

"Odin always favored Thor," Loki said. "It makes sense, I'm not his son, just a- a- thing, at best a pet he brought home to display how powerful he was that he could claim his enemy's son. The worst of Thor's failings were met with an indulgent smile until he brought us nearly to the brink of war while even my strengths were cause for suspicion. It suddenly made sense! Any hint that the pitiful foundling creature he brought home with him could rival his heir, his true son, naturally he would frown at that.

"I'm certain the moment I stopped being the helpless infant he could pity, the fool-child blindly plying him with hero-worship he began to wish he'd left me to my fate. 'Your birthright was to die!' He told me that!" Loki's breath came in agonized gasps. Tony edged closer drawn by Loki's pain but still wary. "I was nothing to him if I wouldn't kneel at his feet and offer gratitude for the very breath in my body! My life, his to save or take upon a whim! And I refused him, I dared to think myself Thor's equal! Why? Why did he not destroy every trace of my existence when I gave him the excuse? Why am I still the second prince of Asgard?"

Hesitantly, almost helplessly Tony caught Loki's shoulders, "It's- Hell, I don't know if it's going to be okay, but I want it to be true."

Loki stared at him, loss and need written across his face.

"You're a thousand years old or something, why do I feel older than you?" Tony wondered. "Look, I know crappy fathers and looking back when they're gone and it's less raw and seeing, I don't know, suggestions, that maybe, just maybe they weren't what you thought they were. Still a crappy father, but maybe not for the reasons you thought when they were there. Talk to Odin, find out if he meant what he said or if he letting his mouth run while he was too angry to hear what he was saying."

Loki let himself lean into Tony. "He collapsed when he learned of my death," he whispered sharing a secret that bewildered him. "But I don't matter to him, I can't."

 **Note:** It might be wrong to consider lifting Thor's hammer an infallible test of character but at this point whether it's true or not is irrelevant to the story, it's what Tony and the Avengers believe. In AoU the whole team accepted Vision as good because he could lift the hammer. But in trying to replicate Mjolnir's test of character Tony is going to gain greater understanding of what the hammer actually does.

I'm mainly making use of Norse mythology for Easter Eggs, Loptr is of course another name for Loki and the fold up glider comes from Skidbladnir. In TDW we saw Gungnir in Bor's hands so it can't have been forged at Loki's bidding and I'm making Mjolnir considerably older than Thor and Loki as well. Rather than trying to anticipate "Thor: Ragnarok" in any meaningful way, I'm bundling Ragnarok into Thanos' coming (so the myths about Ragnarok should be considered more prophecy than history). The myths about Loki's kids just don't fit with my take on the character, Loki in this story is the equivalent of a 19-22 year old, too young to have adult children (Hel and Jormungand at the least feel like they should be grown adults).


	5. Stressors

**Lima to Stockholm**

 **Chapter Five: Stressors**

Tony took a moment to steel his nerves then he went to the door that led to the garden and Loki's chambers. Taking a deep breath he turned the doorknob and stepped out onto the veranda. For a moment he remained frozen on the threshold, waiting for his lungs to seize up. When nothing happened a faint flush of embarrassment crept up his neck. 'What'd Dad say? Still scared to walk out a fucking door even after weeks,' Tony thought derisively.

He took his time as he walked past small walled garden, 'Tomorrow I'll walk out to the pond,' he himself, not for the first time. Even though Loki and Odin had both assured him that the garden was safe, that he'd only been forbidden from it because Loki was a spoiled brat who didn't like to share, Tony's feet didn't like the notion of stepping off the porch.

The veranda curled around two sides of the garden. Loki had explained that the door to the left of Tony's workshop was a second entrance to the study where Tony had almost asphyxiated when he'd tested the limits of his confinement. Tony didn't even glance toward that room. He had been told the door to the right of his led to the rest of Valhalla, to the storied feasting hall where the fallen warriors gathered after spending their days in battle, honing their skills in preparation for Ragnarok. As always Tony tried to turn the knob as he passed and as always it was locked.

Tony rounded the corner and walked past the next room, Loki's personal room, without trying the door. The last door opened up on the library Loki had mentioned. It was as peaceful as promised but that wasn't what drew Tony to the room. The entire ceiling was clear giving the room a light, airy feel despite the towering shelves which were placed somewhat randomly around the room. Tony desperately wanted to disassemble one of the books with their moving pictures and figure out how that worked, but as they'd belonged to Loki and Thor's mother he refrained.

Tony nodded a greeting to the dark haired demi-god curled up in one of the armchair scattered about, Loki waved back idly. He headed deeper into the room until he found a shelf where the books were tattered and occasionally produced jolts of electricity when the pages were turned. Tony returned the book he was carrying with him and picked up the one before it. He flipped through the first few pages, ignoring the runic letters that he was only just starting to be able to read then grinned when he saw a molecular diagram that reminded him even more of Extremis than the ones in the last book. "Okay Rudolph, I've got my next bedtime story picked out," he called.

A woman with classically sculpted features and silver-blonde hair carried a golden tray with a box of poptarts on it into Tony's workshop only to find the engineer slumped over his workbench, his cheek pillowed on a greasy, partially disassembled electrolysis driven engine. The woman set down her tray with a role of her eyes and a small, exasperated huff. "One sleeps in a bed ridiculous creature," she muttered as she went to pick the sleeping engineer up and relocate to the bed in the corner of the room.

Tony woke to sensation of someone looming over him and immediately threw up an arm to shield his head as he pushed himself away. The chair he was sleeping in toppled over spilling him to the floor. The woman watched impassively while Tony flailed. "Wake me up from across the room!" he exclaimed.

"It was not my intention to wake you at all," the woman replied. "If your need for sleep was so desperate as to adopt a piece of machinery for a pillow then who am I to deny you?"

"Admittedly you're probably twenty times stronger than me, what with the puny mortal thing I've got going next to everyone here," Tony pulled himself off the floor and put on a smile, "but you're still way too pretty for me to feel anything but guilty if I hit you."

The woman chuckled, her voice a rich contralto, "Am I? Tell me more... While you eat." She retrieved the tray, "I bring you Midgard delicacies to tempt you."

Tony looked at the fancy, filigreed tray and the box of pop tarts and started laughing, "Sweetheart- What's your name today?"

"Am I so unremarkable that you would forget? I am Sigrid."

"Sigrid," Tony corrected himself, still laughing. "No matter what Thor's told you those are NOT Midgard delicacies, at least not in the minds of anyone over fifteen."

"You should laugh more often. For that reason I am gladdened that I brought them but if this offering is not to your taste-" the woman began.

Tony snatched the box off the tray. "Tell Thor I said thanks, or better yet tell him to come here so I can tell him myself."

"I am forbidden," the woman said. "In truth I did not ask him." A mischievous grin brought her face to life, "I simply deduced. Each time Prince Thor returns from Midgard he brings as many of these boxes with him as he can carry and hordes them in his rooms like a dragon hoarding treasure. I liberated one for you."

"Thor doesn't know I'm here?" Tony asked. "Why not? Didn't his dad tell him Loki and I- Fuck what are we? Not my idea of dead anyway."

"There are rules regarding interactions between ones such as you and those who knew you before death. The prince is notoriously impulsive. Those of us who care for your needs are not to bring up your presence with him."

Tony's expression darkened. "Loki's not dead, or not dead-dead anyway and All-Daddy's keeping that from Thor?"

"It is for the best, the All-Father has deemed it so."

"Hell with that! Their relationship was mess up, yeah. World conquering, stabbing and shit does that. But they were still brothers."

Sigrid's manner became stiff, "Adopted and it is known now that Loki was Jotunn."

"What's that got to do with anything? They're brothers. Thor grieved, he's still grieving," Tony said still frowning. "Hiding something like this is not cool."

* * *

Tony shifted restlessly in his sleep, sweat breaking out on his forehead.

" _Did you know?"_

" _It was for the best. You couldn't be trusted with that information Tony," Steve replied calmly. "I mean just look how you reacted when you found out. I knew you wouldn't be able to understand that it wasn't him."_

 _On the screen Howard sat up. The glare he turned on Tony was undiminished by his ruin of his face. "Who are you to question Captain America boy?"_

 _Beside Howard, Maria gasped and choked, her fingers scrabbling helplessly against Barnes' implacable grip._

" _He's killing Mom!"_

" _Barnes is a decorated war hero, worth ten of you," Howard scolded._

 _Maria turned a sad, faintly reproving look on Tony in spite of the hand clenched around her neck, "You should be more understanding Tony," she said. "After all where would you be if Yinsen hadn't forgiven you for murdering_ _his_ _family?"_

" _Always thinking he knows better," Howard muttered under his breath._

" _Was it so much to want to know that it wasn't our fighting that killed Mom?" Tony asked shooting a quick glared over his shoulder at Steve._

" _How you feel doesn't matter," Steve stated. He walked over to Barnes, who had finished killing Tony's mother and was industriously cleaning Howard's blood off his prosthetic hand. "You're always so selfish Tony, making everything about you. Can't you think about how it affected Bucky? Howard was his friend."_

 _Howard nodded, the movement dislodged his left eye from its shattered socket and it began slowly slipping down his cheek. "Damn proud of that." He scowled at Tony, "At least I can say I was a good man when I had Captain America telling me what to do. You couldn't even manage that." Howard glanced over at Barnes, "You want to be careful to get rid of all the blood, it could rust the joints."_

* * *

"You can't keep something like this from Thor!" Tony shouted at Odin the very moment the All-Father next walked through the door

Odin stared down at Tony sternly. "What would you have me say? That I have made Loki of Valhalla? That I have called him back to fight for Asgard one last time? That after the battle ends I pray that only one of my sons will return to the halls of the dead? You are not alive, Loki is not alive. This is a limbo, a waiting that you may be of use to Asgard before your final passing."

"They could talk," Tony protested. "Settle things between them."

"He's just afraid I might tell Thor that I awoke one last time on that plain where he abandoned me," Loki said. Tony turned and saw him leaning against the the door jam, his arms crossed over his chest.

Odin walked over to Loki and stood facing him for a minute. "Thor truly believes, to the very depth of his soul that you were dead when he left. Do you honestly wish him to know otherwise?" Then he turned and left.

Loki gave a strangled laugh. Then his eyes met Tony's across the room, the Avenger looked shocked and horrified. "You were alive?"

"I hate Thor," Loki stated. "Understand that I hate him, I hated him long before that day. I hate him for being reckless and vainglorious and still loved by all when even a blind man could see what a poor king he would make but he didn't know."

"You saved him," Tony said.

"He told the Avengers?" Loki asked in surprise.

"Clint wasn't the best audience for a story about your heroism," Tony shrugged, "But I'm sure you know how impossible it is to interrupt Thor when he decides to go all skaldic."

"He broke me out of the cell Odin condemned me to so that he could save his precious Lady Jane and avenge our mother's murder. He and all our- his friends promised to kill me should I betray him," Loki smiled falsely. "In return for faithful service I was to be returned to my cell to go mad from isolation and regret. But I did so wish to see dead the one that I had aided to kill my mother. It was only rational to join the battle while Thor still lived."

"Who are you arguing with Reindeer Games?" Tony asked.

"The wound the Kursed gave me would have killed one of the Aesir in minutes," Loki said. "As I lay dying I thought to tell Thor that I'd gotten the reward I desired and I didn't even have to betray him but all that came out of my mouth were apologies. I didn't want him to leave me. As my blood spilled from me so did my magic. I reverted to a frost giant and Thor abandoned me."

"You said he thought you were dead," Tony reminded.

"The war against Jotunheim was won when I was a newborn and Thor barely out of his cradle. We grew-up on tales of heroic slaughter of the beasts but our actual experience with them was… limited," Loki shrugged. "I turned cold, blue, repulsive. I fell unconscious not expecting to wake again. But I did, I awoke alone, my wound filled with ice."

A considering look crept into Tony's eyes.

"Thor put into my hands the means to grievously wound him and I refrain from using it. I don't know why."

"Maybe because it only works if he loves you?" Tony offered.

Loki smiled bitterly, "Yes, the embarrassment of seeing it not matter might be enough to kill me even now."

"Thor cares," Tony assured Loki.

"Like your Captain cared for you?" Loki demanded defensively.

* * *

" _It was having a sorry excuse for a son like you that changed me," Howard said conversationally. Tony wondered how he could even talk with his nose smashed, fragments of bone driven deep into his brain. "That's why I was so determined to get Captain America back. He brought out the best in me. You? Well, were you really surprised when they all left you for him? Even that girl of yours left. She was always too good for you."_

" _You'd be the expert on that Dad," Tony shot back snidely._

" _She let you sweet-talk her back even after you nearly killed her." In the background a massive screen lit up showing the Iron Man armor in the grip of Tony's nightmare, reaching out to strangle Pepper._

" _Your mother died like that," Howard observed. "You shouldn't be so hard on Sgt. Barnes, it took torture to get him to that point all you needed was a few bad dreams." The corners of Howard's mouth turned down disapprovingly._

" _I dealt with that," Tony said stiffly._

" _Let them see you weak you mean," Howard criticized. "Sokovia was too much for her, didn't want you touching her with those blood covered hands."_

 _Suddenly Tony was falling, control of his limbs just gone. "A weapon with the potential to destroy the world," Obadiah whistled as he guided Tony's fall onto a couch and plopped down beside him. "If it hadn't been an accident I'd be impressed."_

" _Well, that's one way to get him to shut up and listen," Howard observed leaning over Tony._

" _You have no idea how many years I was waiting to do that," Obadiah replied grinning at his old friend and business partner._

" _You destroy everything you touch," Howard continued turning back to Tony. "You wrecked my life and your mother's, Charlie Spencer's-"_

" _Mine," Obadiah interjected. Howard shrugged as if to say 'Who cares?'_

" _Don't forget my sister and I," Pietro Maximoff said. "You murdered our parents. Just like you murdered Yinsen's. I can't imagine what that crazy old man was thinking, saving your life. As if the Merchant of Death could ever accomplish anything good."_

" _James was the only friend of yours I ever approved of," Howard resumed. "And now he's in a wheelchair because he followed you."_

" _You tore the Avengers apart," Steve said sadly as he straddled Tony's chest pinning him to the ground, the shield raised above his head. "You went after Bucky, just l knew you would. I'm sorry Tony but I just can't risk you coming after him again. He's my friend." And he brought the shield down._

* * *

Loki stared at the devastation wrought on Tony's workshop in shock. "What have you done?" he demanded.

Tony whirled around and threw one of the devices he'd cobbled together at the wall several feet from where Loki stood. "Everything I do, everything I make, it just makes things worse," he exclaimed.

For a moment Loki considered leaving and coming back as Loptr, the boy was the only one of his incarnations whom Tony didn't shy away from. Then Tony picked one of the more intact devices from the floor and prepared to smash it. Loki caught his arm and spun Tony around so the smaller man's back was against his chest. "You are wrong," Loki said firmly. "The arc reactor, Vision, JARVIS."

"I build weapons," Tony replied. He slumped in Loki's arms telling himself that it was futile to fight.

"So what?" Loki demanded. "You didn't turn away my invasion with an appeal to my humanity did you? Your armor, Thor's hammer, the serums running through the veins of the Captain and the Beast, even the missile fired on your city that you turned on the Chitauri, they are all weapons which prevented Midgard from becoming another of Thanos' thrawl planets. As much as you may hate a weapon raised against you, you love the one raised in your defense… and yet they are the same weapons."

"Obie sold my weapons to terrorists," Tony said. "For five year I had shrapnel from one of my own bombs trying to shred my heart."

"Weapons can always be misused, yes but how much easier is it to abuse those who have no way of defending themselves? My- Thor's forebearers brought peace to the Nine Realms by disarming six of them," Loki said. "Midgard was too weak to bother with, Niflheim too intimidating to threaten but the other six Asgard pacified and disarmed… We kept our own weapons mind you. Jotunheim was the last to fall before Asgard's might and a golden age dawned, just ask any Asgardian." Loki grinned the insane smile Tony remembered from the invasion. "The people of the other realms may hold different opinions but they hardly dare voice them when Asgard holds their very lives hostage. Have you ever disagreed with Thor?"

Tony raised a hand to his throat. "You might say that."

"Then you know what Asgardian diplomacy looks like. A benevolent dictator is only benevolent so long as you bow to them, is that not true? What I said in your world's Deutschland, I learned at Odin's knee. It's what Asgard did to Jotunheim, Vanaheim, Alfheim, Svartalfheim and Muspelheim. The All-Father just didn't like seeing his image, stripped of it's gilt, it's pretty lies, reflected back at him.

"The old man who stood up to me, he was brave but without your Captain's might? I would have crushed him. And now your Captain tells you that his are the only safe hands to hold power. But how safe for you?" Still holding Tony prisoner with one arm, Loki's free hand traced lightly over Tony's cheekbone, "He broke this."

"Stop it," Tony said.

From there Loki ran his hand through Tony's hair, "Fractured your skull in multiple places."

"I said stop."

Dropped down to Tony's ribs, "How many of these did he break when you refused to submit to him?" Loki asked. Finally he traced the y-incision he remembered from Tony's autopsy. "How many before you died?"

Tony cringed, trapped between Loki's hands and the memories his words summoned.

"I can feel how fast your heart beats. I swear to you that I have no intention of hurting you," Loki whispered in Tony's ear. "And you have no choice but to trust my intentions because I hold all the power. There are no Avengers here, no one coming to help you. You've had everything you need to rebuild your armor but you've let fear of yourself hold you back. And now when you need it you have nothing. When you offered me drinks and threats in your tower I believed that I held all the cards but you knew differently. This time you can't glibly threaten me because we both know you have nothing to back it up. Tell me again how evil your weapons are. Are they more more evil than the fact that you have no way of stopping me from doing whatever I like with you?"

Tony started to struggle. He grabbed Loki's arm and tried to force it away, tried every throw Clint and Natasha had managed to teach him. "Loki, let me go right now!" he shouted. "You need me."

"Not if you your self-doubt renders you useless.

"We were speaking of weapons. Your collective world leaders asked that the Avenger accept limits on their powers, that they take up chains of ink to preserve the illusion that the weak can enter into a contract with the strong and believe they are more than beggars subsisting on pity. Your very notion of civilization is based on belief in rule of law, that words on paper can bind people. But when your super-soldier, your living legend did not like those words he tore that illusion asunder. He holds the power, if he does not like the laws he can and will ignore them."

Loki didn't bother acknowledging Tony's continuing, futile efforts to break free of his hold, only wincing minutely when Tony gave in to the urge to bite the arm restraining him. "But you submitted to the rule of law, you made yourself the tool, the teeth of the law when the Captain insisted that he should be the ultimate arbitrator of right and wrong. Even in failing you tied him with chains of regret when the strength of ink was shown to be lacking. What would your kind be, except dictators had none of you stood against him? Your Avengers could have stood together, gone before your world's gathering of leaders and told them that their laws were meaningless in the face of your power. And even if you did not literally force them to their knees they would have had faced the same choice as the crowd that you defended from me: Accede to my demands or face the consequences."

Loki waited until Tony exhausted himself struggling. "I won't hurt you, I won't," he promised repeatedly until Tony's breathing evened out. "You believe me because you have no choice. Because not believing would be worse, you couldn't calm yourself if you didn't allow yourself believe that I will honor my words."

Loki let Tony go and stepped back. Tony stumbled several steps before grabbing up a wrench and spinned back to face Loki.

Loki smiled broadly, "There, don't you feel better? I do. I've discovered that I like you best when you stand as my equal but I won't make myself less to place us on the same level. I am not a civil man. You have to raise yourself up to meet me, you did it before. Asgard is not a civil society, Odin's word is absolute because his power is absolute. The only recourse for one disagrees with him is to meet him with greater power. Thanos is certainly not civil. Rebuild your armor, your weapon and when he comes meet him on your feet not on your knees."

"Right now I pretty much hate you," Tony said still clutching the wrench.

"Your culture claims it is important to be one's self." Loki spread his hands in a self-effacing gesture, "In my experience that is terrible advice if I wish to be liked."

Tony left the wrench drop to his side. "Yeah, I can empathize with that," he said, his expression softening minutely.

* * *

 **Notes:** The nightmares are not meant to be an accurate depiction of fact, just an expression of Tony's fears and feelings.


	6. Accepting Responsibility

**Lima to Stockholm**

 **Chapter Six: Accepting Responsibility**

After their confrontation Loki withdrew to give Tony the space to collect himself. A short while later he returned as Loptr. Working mostly in silence he and Tony picked through the wreckage left in the wake of the engineer's meltdown. They righted tables, restored tools to their proper places and picked through the remains of Tony's devices sorting out what was worth repairing. It took most of the morning for them to finish.

Loptr left Tony tinkering with one of his cobbled together devices, feeling reassured that he'd pushed the engineer past his guilty dithering rather than breaking him. Loki would have rather stayed with Tony but an ambassador from Nidavellir was expected at court. The Odin-clone was behaving oddly and Thor was only humoring 'Odin' about Thanos' coming, he wouldn't properly motivate the dwarves in their preparations.

When the audience was finished Loki took a female shape he hoped Tony would find pleasing. She checked her appearance in the reflective surface of a shield hung on the wall then darkened the color of her hair several shades, reminding Tony of his Lady Pepper might work in the short run but Loki already felt too much like a ghost in his own skin. "I think you're a Gudrun," the mage decided with a final glance at her reflection then picked up Tony's dinner tray.

Tony glanced up at the sound of the door opening. Gudrun knelt beside Tony's chair. "I am told you do not eat enough, so I thought, perhaps I might make it more interesting?" She picked up a piece of fruit and held it out to Tony.

"I don't like to be handed things," Tony stated, drawing back reflexively.

"I wouldn't call this handing you things," Gudrun replied.

"I don't have the energy for this," Tony muttered. He sighed, "Who's putting you up to this? Even at my worst I didn't, I mean sure sex is, used to be, a commodity but my first rule was to know what they wanted from me and it damn well was always them that wanted something out of it, never a third party."

"Maybe I just like you," Gudrun said.

"Doubt that," Tony replied. "Look I'm sort of busy trying to put everything back to rights, could you just… go away?"

"You do need to eat something today," Gudrun suggested putting the tray down on the table beside Tony.

A few hours later Loki returned as himself carrying the book they'd been reading. "Really?" Tony asked.

"Why not?" Loki shrugged. "I believe we were reading about some strange experiments Mother's ancestors on Vanaheim were performing on themselves back in the dark ages before travel along Yggdrasil's trunk was discovered?"

Tony nodded warily.

Loki took his normal spot, opened up the book and began to read.

The book wasn't quite as old as its subject matter, being a history of the ancient Vanir's scientific advancements rather than a lab book but Loki still estimated that it had been written before Buri's time. Loki had to give Tony credit for finding such a treasure, somehow the engineer had stumbled upon what seemed to be the Vanir's transition from science to magic, the final act of science being transforming themselves so that they ceased to need tools as an intermediary between themselves and the energies they harnessed. It was fascinating and once the two of them had realized what they'd discovered it had led to any number of discussions- arguments about whether it implied magic was the more advanced art or an evolution of laziness that allowed its practitioners to forego the rigorous understanding demanded by science.

Normally when Loki read Tony leaned over his shoulder to examine the diagrams and to try to learn the language. This time Tony kept himself out of arm's reach. As he moved restlessly around the room he shot Loki nervous, guilty glances. After several minutes Loki swiveled to sit sideways, the pages of the book tilted toward the room in silent apology for making Tony afraid.

* * *

" _Do you ever think about how I must have felt, sitting in that caved in apartment with my parents' bodies and a bomb with your name on it?" Wanda asked. She held Tony's head between her hands, forcing him to look as his parents' car smashed into the telephone pole._

 _The other Avengers stood around and watched as Barnes jerked his father off the ground and smashed in his face. "This is very triggering for me," Bruce declared. "I can't be here." He turned around and vanished after his first step away._

" _Poor Bucky, this must be so terrible for him," Steve observed sadly. "It's not his fault." Sam nodded and patted Steve on the shoulder sympathetically._

" _It is my understanding that this occurred years ago," Vision said. "Please help me understand the current relevance of these events."_

 _Barnes walked around the car and reached through the window to strangle Tony's mother. "That's pretty sloppy," Clint said. "How's he going to cover up the bruises on her throat. This is supposed to look like an accident right?"_

 _Natasha glanced over to where Wanda was still forcing Tony to watch, "He doesn't care enough to look into properly," she said. "If he didn't know it's his own fault. You could even say it's a theme with him, he didn't bother checking up on Obie either."_

" _Why don't they put up a better fight?" Thor complained. "This is a most pathetic showing."_

 _Barnes finished murdering Tony's mother then coolly started cleaning up the scene, starting with the traffic camera._

" _Tones, you know I would have helped if I could," Rhodey said regretfully and Wanda let Tony turn enough to see him laying in a hospital bed attached to multiple IV's and monitors, "Even though you put me here."_

 _Wanda's fingernails dug into the sides of Tony's face, drawing blood. "I want you to understand how helpless I felt. You destroyed my entire world so I'll do the same to you. You can hardly blame me if your world is bigger than mine was back then."_

* * *

Only a few hours after he left Tony for the night Loki heard the engineer rattling around. Obviously he wasn't trapped in a screaming nightmare but he wasn't sleeping either. Deciding that he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep himself, Loki let himself into Tony's room.

Tony had gone back to repairing the damages resulting from the previous night's nightmares. Without speaking Loki started clearing away the debris Tony had deemed too dangerous for Loptr to deal with; the Midgardian's concern about the child handling 'sharps' was ludicrous in Loki's opinion, he'd already been training to fight with swords and daggers for twenty years when he'd actually been Loptr's age.

They worked in companionable silence for nearly half an hour.

"I'm tired," Tony said suddenly. "Back when I started as Iron Man I said I didn't want to be part of a zero accountability system. People died because of my bombs but it wasn't my fault, I just built them. It wasn't the guy that fired it, he was just following orders. The officer who gave the order was just supporting a policy. The people making the policies were generally trying to minimize casualties or prevent something worse. None of us were at fault but there were still dead people at the end of the day, innocent people. So I said, 'Okay, I am a part of a system that kills people.' I never said l was the only one.

"But what do I tell someone like Wanda Maximoff? I'm sorry that I made the bomb that killed your parents but it wouldn't have been anywhere near your family if you and your neighbors could figure out how to stop killing each other over grudges going back six hundred years? She was ten, her parents died, that's all she cares about. She doesn't care that NATO was trying to keep the various ethnic groups in her part of the world from slaughtering each other. She doesn't care about the genocide that triggered NATO's involvement or that the aggressors were retaliating for shit that happened back in WWII which happened because everyone already hated each other for the incident before that one and the one before that. All she cares about is that her parents died and I get that. I didn't really care about all the other factors half a minute after watching Barnes kill my parents.

"Wanda doesn't care about strategic bombings of military targets or efforts to minimize civilian casualties. There were going to be some and her parents were the unlucky ones. They were her parents, the potential lives saved don't matter to her, all that mattered was they died… Which is fucking ironic given how quick she was to write off the people she killed as acceptable collateral damage. Is she planning on just standing still and taking it when the kid of one of those people who died at Lagos pulls a gun on her? Or is she planning on beating them to death the way Rogers and Barnes did me?

"I'm so fucking sick and tired of being the only one who takes responsibility for being involved when things go south. I'm to blame because Wanda lost her parents, so I'm to blame because she did a shitty job of handling it. But Barnes isn't in anyway involved in killing my parents even when I watch him murdering them but I'm to blame because I didn't do a great job of handling seeing it happen. I don't sleep trying to find ways to make up my mistakes, shortcomings. When I do I'm plagued with nightmares about everything I could have done better, everything I'm blamed for. Meanwhile everyone around me just washes their hands. It's the same damn shit I walked away from when it came to making missiles and wars but there I knew the problems were too big, the reasons why the demand for weapons exists were too complex. I knew it couldn't be solved so I just opted out, smashed all my toys and went home. I'll take my share of the blame but I'm tired of shouldering everyone else's too. I didn't really expect the world to change, but I did expect the Avengers, Rogers to step up and own their mistakes."

"But admitting that their decisions are as questionable, as prone to error as anyone else's would invalidate their image of themselves. Who is the Captain if he is not the good man bravely standing up to the bullies of the world?" Loki replied. "When he heard that he'd killed you, the first thing he did was look for a sword to throw himself upon to escape the knowledge of what he'd done. I told you your objective mirror is a terrible weapon."

"You're still awake?" Tony asked, surprised.

"I wish _you_ were not," Loki sighed. "Could you not at least try to get a good night's sleep?"

"You know I've heard rumors that those exist," Tony commented giving his bed a wary look. "Wish I remembered what that felt like, maybe a good dream or two if I want to get really ambitious. You wouldn't know any magic to help with that, Rudolph?"

Loki looked startled. "I… I just might," he said. After that the Odin-Clone faithful reported to his throne every time Tony managed to get to sleep. It took several days before conditions aligned but as soon as they did Loki formed a mental bond between himself and the clone viewing Midgard from his seat on Hlidskjalf. For a moment he had the strangest sensation that the clone was hiding something from him but Loki was too busy forging a link with Tony's sleeping mind, channeling his vision to see the view from Hlidskjalf, to pursue the thought.

" _Growth in the clean energy industry next year is expected at eight percent, predominantly in developing countries where full-sized Arc Reactors can provide local power with minimal infrastructure," Pepper read in a warm, dramatic style._

" _That's not any bedtime story I'd want to hear," Happy commented from across the room where he and a woman Tony vaguely recognized as Harley's mom were monitoring and assisting Vision's attempt at cooking dinner. Harley and Peter had their heads together over a schematic while Rhodey and Peter's aunt went through a stack of request forms._

" _At this age all Nettie understands is the tone of voice. This way she gets exposure to language and I get the yearly reports read," Pepper replied archly and Tony noticed the dark haired infant cradled in her arm._

" _Give her here," Rhodey laughed, "I've got some technical manuals I know Tony's daughter will like better than your boring financials."_

" _And let you get out of reviewing the Avengers' division's resource allocation requests?" Pepper replied. "I don't think so."_

' _Weirdest dream I ever had,' Tony thought trying to get a better look at the baby, 'Weird, but nice.'_

* * *

Thor strode through the halls of Asgard, heading for his father's study with Bruce trailing behind him looking out of place. "The mission may take several weeks," Thor said, a worried frown creasing his face.

"Something different?" Bruce asked. The earlier missions he'd gone on with Thor had consisted of visiting communities on a number of different planets. Sometimes they dealt with bandits or monsters while they were there, other times they'd help train the local forces.

Thor shook his head. "Just longer but I worry for Father. After Mother's death he was devastated." He looked down, his expression heartbroken, "It was Mother, how could he be otherwise? But Odin is more than my father, more than Frigga's husband, he is the All-Father. When he chose to confront Malekith here, in Asgard, I feared that his desire to see Mother's death avenged had unhinged him. He cared not for the casualties that would be incurred so long as the Dark Elves perished... Perhaps I was little better, my plan risked much to see Jane safe although I was loath to admit it at the time but Father's unconcern when confronted with the likelihood of high casualties among our own people was disconcerting enough to turn Heimdall from his steadfast loyalty to the throne."

"What changed?" Banner asked. "You came stay on Earth immediately after the Convergence. Seeing you here on Asgard, I can't believe you'd have left if your father was unfit to rule."

"Between my return to Asgard after Ultron's defeat and your arrival I was given opportunity to hone my skills as Prince of Asgard," Thor said wryly. "However you are right, I had faith in my father's judgement when I returned to Midgard. Father had asked me to take the throne but I was just confronting the truth of my own recklessness. I had convinced myself that my plan; taking Jane to the Dark World to confront Malekith; was for the good of Asgard. However, trapped on Svartalfheim, Malekith in possession of the Aether, Loki's life sacrificed for mine and Jane cured I had no choice but to acknowledge my true priorities. It was luck alone that enable Jane and I to return to Midgard in time to put a halt to Malekith's schemes.

"When I returned to Asgard, Father no longer seemed the vengeance fill berserker that I had mutinied against the day after Mother's funeral. Between the two of us, the man I returned home to was the better king and so I refused the throne." Thor sighed heavily, "However, when I returned to Asgard to report on the fate of the Mind Stone, I found that my father was not on speaking terms with any of his old advisors."

"That's why you didn't return," Banner surmised. "You thought Odin would talk to you."

"Aye and he does," Thor agreed. "Once I made myself available Father wasn't slow to find uses for me." He shook his head, "It- It was nothing I'd expected. Father is allowing Vanaheim and Alfheim to rearm themselves, Nidavellir's master smiths have been given leave to work their crafts as they will. All three Realms are now allowed a voice in the Thing, if they banded together they could even overturn Asgard's decisions."

"Did he give any reason?" Banner asked.

"A good one," Thor replied. "When the Bifrost was destroyed the Realms fell into chaos. Without Asgard's armies to maintain the peace marauders and rebellions sprang up like wild fires. Father decided that those three realms had shown Asgard millennia of loyalty and to continue to hold them as puppet states served only to weakened us all. In particular he wished Vanaheim, my mother's birthplace, to be strong and capable of it's own defense once again. Hogun the Grim and over three dozen other Vanir who had found high places in the armies of Asgard were allowed to return home and become the core of a new Vanaheim army."

"That doesn't sound particularly alarming," Banner replied.

Thor shook his head, "After what I'd learned of Midgard at the side of my Lady Jane I found it most appealing that Father was willing to share power between the different peoples of the Nine Realms rather than continuing Asgard's age old practice of concentrating all strength in our own hands. Father has even entered into talks with Niflheim and Jotunheim." Thor's gaze dropped to his feet, "Although, after Loki and I's actions, Jotunheim wants nothing to do with us. Father has made so many changes, and I hardly approve of them, but behind them all is his sudden inexplicable belief that a threat looms on the horizon, one that dwarfs Malekith and the second Dark Elf uprising."

Thor glanced around then lowered his voice. "Father has spoken to me of a foe from the dawn of time, a tale told to frighten children as far back as the days of my great grandfather Buri. Father speaks of the mad Titan as a real and pressing threat," Thor said. "He cuts himself off from the voices of his oldest and closest advisors. He avoids the feasting halls. Friend Bruce, Father has isolated himself ever since Mother and Loki's deaths. These last few months, apart from the necessities of ruling his kingdom, Father barely stirs himself to leave his quarters. I do not fault him as a king but I fear for him as a man. He is too much alone."

"So you want to say goodbye in person before we leave?" Bruce asked.

"And return as quickly as possible," Thor said. He threw open the door to his father's study and Bruce promptly walked into Thor's back.

When Thor continued to stand there, frozen in his tracks, Bruce leaned around him to see what had caused such a reaction. He spotted a small, dark-haired boy caught in the act of ducking behind Odin's desk. Odin himself frowned severely at his son, "Have you never heard of knocking?" he demanded .

Thor lunged across the room and fell to his knees, reaching out with shaking hands to turn the boy to face him. "I'd heard rumors," he whispered. His eyes gleamed with tears, with awe.

"Loptr, go to the garden," Odin ordered as he removed Thor's hands from the boy's shoulders. Loptr scurried outside with one fearful backwards at Thor.

"Is he?" Thor asked hopefully turning to his father.

Odin shrugged, "He lost his mother in the Dark Elves' attack, that is all I've been able to learn of where he came from. You would know better than I if your brother had taken lovers."

Standing on the threshold of Odin's office Bruce looked vaguely uncomfortable but Thor merely shrugged, "Loki found Fandral's tales of his conquests distasteful and so he made a point of being discrete. The boy, Loptr? He has Loki's look about him. He is- must be- something of Loki that is not lost. Can you not publically acknowledge him?"

"And confirm his father was a frost giant?" Odin asked. "I've already confined the boy to the royal chambers for his own safety."

Thor scowled darkly, "Who would be so low as to consider attacking a child!"

Odin frowned at Thor as if he couldn't believe what had come out of his son's mouth. "You are aware that most of the warriors who survived the Jotun-Asgard war have already killed children younger than that? Did you not listen to your history teachers? We sacked Jotunheim's capital and seven of its other major cities before they tendered their surrender. Loki was left out to die because his parents likely considered it a kinder fate than to allow him to fall into the hands of the enemy army. It was my choice to spare him that was the oddity."

Thor's expression darkened, "And you have banned me from your quarters, from Loki's son."

"Why all the concern for your brother now?" Odin asked coldly. "You left him to die."

He could have punched Thor in the gut and had less effect. "Father," he pled, "Loki was dead when I left him. I swear it."

Odin's expression clouded over with confusion, Bruce stepped forward concern creasing his features but Odin shook his head and waved Bruce back. "Of course. You've explained what happened before. You have a mission Thor. We will discuss Loptr when you return."

* * *

Loptr burst into Tony's room looking like a frightened rabbit. "Shit, kid what happened?" Tony exclaimed hurrying across the room to the boy.

"I- He- He-," Loptr stammered incoherently.

"Did someone hurt you?" Tony demanded. "Over the all the stuff I've had you pilfering?"

Loptr shook his head, his expression utterly miserable.

"Okay, okay," Tony muttered to himself. "What do I do?" He patted Loptr's shoulder gingerly and gave him a smile. "You think you could handle being my lab assistant for awhile. Just let whatever it is go for now."

Loptr looked up at Tony hopefully from beneath messy bangs. He took a deep steadying breath and nodded.

"Good, great," Tony declared. "When I was a real little kid my dad used to let me do this. It was about the only thing we ever shared. I ask for tools and you hand them to me. I'll even tell you what everything's called upfront and not yell if you get it wrong. I mean, sure you call a hammer a hammer, but you've probably got your own name for a phillips vs a flathead." Tony grinned and ruffled Loptr's hair, "Hey while we're at it, why don't you teach me the Space-Viking names for all this stuff and we can use those then you can tell me if I get it wrong."

Loptr smiled back timidly and they spend the next half hour discussing tools and rearranging Tony's work bench.

"Now that I've finished cleaning up the mess I made I'm working on something that will scan the All-Daddy's oversized toothpick," Tony explained. "After what I saw of the Mind Gem, I'm figuring 'enchantment' or 'spell' is some sort of coding and whatever the spell is laid on serves as the operating system, the computer."

"Coding? Computer?" Loptr looked puzzled.

"I scanned the Mind Gem, it was an artificial intelligence," Tony explained. "The most complex I've ever seen, and that's saying something coming from me. it's program was written into the molecular structure of a crystal. The scepter, then Ultron and ultimately Vision gave the code physical reality, the ability to act." Tony closed his eyes for a moment, "We took the gem back when we made Vision, and J.A.R.V.I.S. let me add his code to what was already there, to- to- overwrite the HYDRA input about humanity. But it was too late, code can replicate. Ultron had already copied himself into hundreds of drone bodies. J.A.R.V.I.S. debugged the Mind Gem, used his code to repair the corrupted segments, but it didn't fix the copies of the bad software Ultron had already propagated.

"I'm hypothesizing that there's some sort of coding on the toothpick, and Thor's hammer, that gives them some sort of rudimentary intelligence." Tony grimaced, "That's not right. Limited intelligence, the hammer can, somehow, judge its wielder. It can refuse to be lifted if it finds them unworthy but it doesn't act on its own. It doesn't decide a course of action, Thor decides lightning or pounding and who deserves it but the hammer decides he's worthy of making that judgement and it can change its mind. I put a biometric lock on my weapons and it's me, deciding, at this moment in time, this person is not going to misuse what I give them. But once I make that choice it's out of my hands. Sure I can change the locks later but from the time they walk out the door to the time they ask me for upgrades, and they always do, it's out of my hands, they can do whatever they want with what I've given them. More than that I can misjudge, not see when they lie, Vision hadn't done anything, the hammer didn't have any actions to judge him on but it still made the determination. It could, must have somehow, looked inside him and judged on that not on what he'd shown the world."

Seeing Loptr looked anything but bored, Tony continued. "The Mind Gem was easy, obvious. The crystal it's made of two distinct but matching units: complex face centered cubics, the individual atoms in the two units are different but they sum to the exact same size for the cubic so they're interchangeable on a unit to unit level. Ones and zeroes, easy to read as a coding. Easy to find the code, I never did manage to fully untangle it. Just realized the surface of it could be recoded, J.A.R.V.I.S. was already there, willing and available. The only other thing we needed was Thor's lightning to energize the Gem's structure enough energy to move, to rewrite the code. I've seen you and Rudolph casting spells, I think it's got to be more coding but the hammer and spear? No obvious hard drive. I don't know where the code goes and I don't have anything to read it, not like I had at my lab. So that's what we're doing, building a system to find the code on Gungnir. Now get me that torque wrench and let's get to work."

"This one?" Loptr asked selecting the correct tool and handing it to Tony.

After maybe twenty minutes Tony pulled Loptr closer and carefully guided him through the process of lining up and assembling a number of components. Loptr giggled and used his magic to easily repeat the task on the next set. "Smart-ass," Tony grumbled cheerfully, "Just for that you can do all the rest of them."

"Of course I can," Loptr declared snootily and just to show off he did three sets at once.

"Sorcerer's apprentice," Tony snarked.

"Sorceress's apprentice," Loptr corrected. "My mother was my only master."

Tony made a thoughtful sound at that.

* * *

 **Notes:** So assuming the twins are in their mid-twenties and their parents were killed when they were around ten, that puts the bombing that killed their parents in approximately 2000. The 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia puts the US military in Eastern Europe in the right time frame. The military action didn't have UN approval due to opposition from Russia and China… So taking that as the most likely reason for missiles over the Maximoff household, if NATO had abided by the UN's oversight then her parents wouldn't have been killed (by a US missile anyway), but Wanda's fighting on the side of refusing UN oversight.

From Wanda's side of the equation that one bomb is the most important thing in the world. Her parents aren't terribly important people so whether the missile was fired by the US or by either side in the conflict they're collateral damage, not a target. I don't think she's in the least bit capable of looking at the larger situation in a rational manner, no matter how much time passes or how tenuous the connection between Tony and the missile ending up in her house was she's going to cling to her chosen scapegoat. Even if I leave out my theory that Wanda was using her powers to subconsciously poison the team against Tony and make them sympathetic to her (because otherwise the decision to put her on the Avengers is just too stupid to bare and everyone from Steve to Natasha to Rhodey to Tony all apparently bought off on her presence on the team) I still think the way everyone buys into her sob story would still serve the same purpose judging from how easily Steve bought into her view of Tony's character while she was still dizzy from her face-turn.

So for Wanda's side of the equation I want Tony completely divorced from her parents' death, I can't see anything less convincing her that she was wrong to want revenge against him. From Tony's side that particular bomb doesn't matter. Even if one of his bombs didn't kill her parents it could have and they did killed others people. Yinsen and getting blown up himself already gave him a personal connection to the unintended victims of his bombs, the Maximoffs are extraneous. The only way I can deal with Tony's zero accountability system statement from IM1 is to assume he was hoping that other people would follow his lead and take some responsibility for the existence of war. Instead, because this is Marvel, everyone just nods their heads and says "Yep, Tony's to blame."


	7. Repercussions

**Lima to Stockholm**

 **Note:** I'm ignoring the myth about Loki commissioning the creation of both Mjolnir and Gungnir from the dwarves because I'm pretty sure Gungnir was shown in Bor's hands in TDW and thus was around before Loki was born in the MCU.

 **Chapter Seven: Repercussions**

Time slipped by in a quiet sort of way. Where Tony had been able to jump on the Mind Gem and start unraveling its secrets the moment he laid hands on it Gungnir was a different story. For one thing, Tony had an analytical lab that was the envy of a planet at his disposal on Earth. Asgard might be the more advanced planet but...

 _Tony looked up from the Asgardian Thermal Desorption Mass Spectrometer Loptr had acquired for him. "All your doctors are women, am I right?"_

 _Loki blinked at him in surprise, "How did you know that?" he asked. "-Although the preferred term is Healer."_

" _Easy: So-called 'normal' magic users are female. Your tech runs on magic," Tony said. "Now obviously guys can use it but your ancestors- Well your mom's ancestors anyway and I'm betting that Asgard, Jotunheim and all the rest of your world have some sort of independent, parallel development going on back in the pre-Yggdrasil-travel days. Anyway, the goal of magic was to eliminate the need for tech-interfaces, to let people manipulate energy fields directly. It didn't work, only a fraction of women and a scant handful of men got the ability, but my guess? That thinking didn't completely go away." He poked at the spectrometer irritably, "Which is why any joe-shmoe can operator a set of wings powered by the equivalent of one of my Arc Reactors but the delicate stuff all requires a mage to operate it. Even though you failed to give everyone the ability to- to sense the Universe on that level your culture still thinks it's better. So your doct- excuse me, healers are all women, all magic-users because your analytical equipment only works for someone with the inborn ability to reach out and manipulate magic fields. I'm going to have to redesign all this crap before I've got a working lab."_

Even after Tony had built a lab that met his requirements it was still slow going. The Mind Gem was practically a crystallized spell, something Tony could touch and poke at and the stone itself begged, demanded attention. The spells on Gungnir were more of a subtle working. Tony found himself having to have Loki or Loptr enchant various objects while he ran his scans to develop a baseline for how magic enchantments worked.

Tony became skilled at detecting active manipulation of the magic fields and predicting what a spell's ends were from those manipulations but once the casting was done it became all but impossible for him to detect the perturbations left behind in the the fields.

" _I can look at the Earth's magnetic fields and tell you where the poles are NOW but they don't tell me about the last time the poles reserved themselves. To figure that out I've go dig through layers of old lava on the ocean floor. Scanning something you've bibbitied doesn't tell me jack-shit unless I've got a before and after shot to run comparisons on."_

But building that baseline took time and from what Tony gathered the sort of magical workings that went into the creation of Gungnir and Mjolnir had been lost many millennia ago.

" _When'd your people stagnate Reindeer Games?" Tony asked quietly one night after Loki had set aside their 'bedtime story'._

" _I don't know," Loki sighed. "Why do you think Father wanted you so badly? There are only warriors in our history books, no innovators. Primitive though it may be Midgard's technology is still in the process of becoming. You are one of its primary drivers, the animating force behind several of its recent leaps forward. You're here so that you may immerse yourself in the present of Asgard's technological status quo in the hopes that you could introduce a similar advancement here. Mayhap even knock loose some of the rust that has held us locked in place for so many years."_

It had always been easy for Tony to lose himself in a challenge and, once the idea took root, the thought of having the ability to lock weapons based on the user's intent was an irresistible one for him.

* * *

Tony rocked his chair back on two legs as he stretched, grumbling about Asgardian philistines and chairs that neither spun nor rolled when he noticed Loptr was still hanging out in his workshop. The kid was in the process of rearranging the toolbox like a squishy, magic-using version of Dum-E. "Hey! Sorceress' Apprentice, not that I don't like your company but don't you have better places to be?"

Loptr dropped the wrench he'd been holding and started stammering.

"You've been here practically all day, every day lately," Tony realized as he thought back. "You're not stuck here because I told what's-her-name to go away?"

Loptr shook his head, "I like building stuff with you."

"But don't you have your magic studies? Or kids your own age to-"

Loptr flinched, "If you don't want me here-" he exclaimed and rushed out the door.

"Oh fuck," Tony gave into the impulse to bang his head against the table as he remembered how _he_ would have taken being told he ought to have friends. And Loptr didn't even have the option of buying the illusion of friends the way Tony had done.

He hurried after the boy and found Loptr sitting on the bench under the willow tree in the garden. Tony paused at the edge of the mental barrier created by the edge of the veranda. "Look, I'm an idiot when it comes to the whole dealing with living, breathing people," he called to Loptr. "You just haven't realized it yet because when it comes to brilliant kids I've generally got a good enough memory to think back to when I was your age and remember what I wanted from people around me back then."

Loptr stared at the water, not acknowledging Tony. In Asgard's throne room, Loki looked up briefly sensing something not quite right with one of his clones, but whatever it was the clone didn't trigger a full alarm so he went back to trying to figure out what in the name of the Norns actually motivated Niflheim.

"Something changed,"Tony said. "You used to be out and about in the place scavenging things for me and you'd show me what you'd learned from your mom. Ever since that one day when you showed up all freaked out you're always here. What happened?"

Loptr remembered: The angry, fearful glances from people around the palace who'd taken note of his resemblance to his older-self. Thor's hands, too hard on his shoulders, the hope that he didn't know how to cope with in his erstwhile brother's eyes. Nothing he could share with Tony. "There's nowhere else for me to go." It was the truth if not the true answer to the question asked.

"What?" Tony took a step forward, into the garden, and froze. His heart started racing.

"My mother's dead," Loptr said.

"Oh kid, I- shit. I am so sorry." Tony forgot his fears and walked out to the bench to sit down beside Loptr. He wrapped an arm around the boy's shoulders.

In the four years since Frigga's death comfort was one thing Loki had never been offered. The next thing Loptr new he was sobbing, his face buried against Tony's chest. "It was my fault," he whispered.

Tony petted Loptr's hair and ignored the bruises forming under the kid's desperate grip. When Loptr's sobs trickled off into exhausted hiccups, Tony picked him up and carried him back inside to tuck him into his bed before going back to work on the spear. With thoughts of dead mothers fresh in his mind, sleep was the last thing Tony wanted.

* * *

" _Howard? Howard?" Maria Stark's weak, broken voice was all but lost under the sound of grave shifting under heavy footsteps._

 _The Winter Soldier stared blankly over the roof of the car as he strangled her._

 _In defiance of his shattered skull, Howard stood up and started walking up the road. "We were barely a mile from the house," he grumbled. "How the hell could that worthless son of mine not know what happened? You can bet Captain America would have known."_

* * *

"Your sleep is still disturbed by thoughts of your parents' murder," Loki commented after waking Tony from yet another nightmare.

"Yeah. How do you hear me anyway?" Tony asked leaning his head against his hands tiredly.

"I placed a monitoring spell on this room."

"Eavesdropping spell," Tony corrected mustering the energy to glare.

"No, those are devised to be undetectable," Loki argued. "The spell I used is the one my mother used to watch Thor and I's nursery."

"Okay, now I'm just insulted," Tony sighed.

"If it would help I doubt Odin would be opposed to having Barnes assassinated for you," Loki remarked casually.

For several minutes Tony could only stare at him in shock. "You didn't just suggest killing someone because I have bad dreams."

"Why not?" Loki shrugged, "You are important to the war against Thanos, your ability to create is extremely rare. While your so-called super-soldiers are few and far between on Midgard they are as common as dirt in Asgard's armies. The Captain's ability to inspire others to fight even in the mouth of the serpent has it's value but the Soldier is irrelevant to the Universe's future."

"Well that's a first," Tony muttered under his breath. "No, absolutely not. Look, even in my nightmares Barnes basically just an object. I'm not mad at him… anymore. Sure, then and there, it was his hands around Mom's throat and he was right there. I wanted someone to pay for what happened to her, she never deserved that. Hell, Dad didn't deserve that and I got along with him about as well as you and Odin."

Loki winced at the thought of his relationship with Odin.

"But once I'd had an hour or two to process I got it. Even then I got it a little, there was a reason Steve was the one I decked first. But then Barnes went and shoved a gun in my face, for the second time in as many days, because I had the unmitigated gall to punch his not-so-little boyfriend. And after that I didn't care if was Winter Soldier or Barnes confusing Post-Serum Rogers for a delicate flower." Tony made a disgusted sound, "What'd the rest of us do to deserve the two of them and their whole star-crossed bromance?"

"The whole world is collateral damage if they are together," Loki surmised.

"Hell yeah," Tony groaned. "You know, Captain America meant everything to Howard, way more than Mom or I, but in Siberia I found out Howard didn't mean a damn thing to Rogers. He finds out my parents got murdered and all he could think about was how it might affect his good buddy, getting justice for them never even crossed his mind. Anyone not named Bucky Barnes is so much chopped liver in his world, forgotten before the corpse is cold." Tony started laughing, "And me? I was still breathing when he wrote me off as yet another necessary sacrifice at the altar of keeping Bucky Barnes safe and sound.

"God, can you imagine how awkward it would have been for Bucky if I'd known and Steve had managed to bring him home before Zemo blew everything up?" Tony exclaimed, throwing his hands up. "I might have been a lousy host if I'd known that I was being asked to house the guy who murdered my parents. I mean how would Bucky have felt knowing I'd have to be picturing his hands around my mother's throat every time I looked at him. No wonder Steve kept it a secret."

"And how you might have felt doesn't matter at all?" Loki asked.

"Didn't you know? Tony Stark doesn't have a heart," Tony quipped bitterly. "Someone put it in the paper once so it must be true."

"How you feel matters to me," Loki stated.

"Because I'm less useful when I'm obsessing about my parents' murder or my weapons being misused," Tony finished Loki's statement tiredly.

For a heartbeat Loki looked ready to protest but he curbed the urge. "Would you feel better if the Soldier were dead?" he asked instead.

"No," Tony repeated. "I'm not petty enough to want him dead just to hurt Steve. And that would be the biggest reason to go after him. Now that I'm thinking I get it, all that HYDRA left of Barnes is a wind-up doll. When we were fighting, Steve said killing Bucky wouldn't bring my parents back, like that's supposed to make it okay for he and Barnes to ride off into the sunset. There's no way to bring the dead back, so just forget 'em. Dad's probably a case of live by the sword, die by the sword but I still want justice for my mom." Tony sighed, "I don't know if that's possible though. I've spent enough years making weapons not to get any sort of warm fuzzies from melting down guns used to commit murders, the gun's just a gun.

"And yeah, I shouldn't objectify him but I can deal with a weapon that murdered my parents. I can't deal with a person being forced into killing them. Sure killing him now won't bring them back but if he's such a great guy couldn't he have found a way to off himself seventy years ago? Spare himself and the rest of us a lot of misery."

"Even with all the power of Asgard at my disposal it is still impossible to reverse what has been," Loki said.

"Then I'd want Barnes contained," Tony said. "Because Bucharest and Berlin say he's dangerous to everyone around him and he doesn't- probably isn't capable of giving a damn who gets hurt when he's threatened. I wouldn't ever want to deal with him- I'd probably sock anyone who told me to be the bigger man and forget his hand around my mom's neck but I wouldn't get anything except more guilt out of seeing him dead."

* * *

 _Pepper walked back and forth in the bedroom they'd shared in the Tower, a screaming baby cuddled against her shoulder. "_ _Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop. When the wind blows, the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. And down will come baby, cradle and all," she sang, her voice off-key and a little desperate._

" _I don't think she likes it Boss-Lady," FRIDAY observed. "And frankly I don't blame her that's a horrible song. No one really puts babies in trees right?"_

 _Pepper chuckled tiredly, "We only think about how nice it would be if the wind would rock them to sleep when Mommy's arms are so tired I think they might just fall off."_

" _If you set up an automated cradle I could rock her," FRIDAY offered._

" _I think she likes your voice, she's finally quieted down. You're going to be the best big sister ever aren't you FRI?" Pepper said fondly._

" _Absolutely!"_

" _Well keep talking, until she's really out."_

" _I could tell her the weather report," FRIDAY said dubiously. "But since we're already talking, I've been meaning to ask if I could get some holo-emitters set up in the home-theatre on the common level?"_

" _What for?" Pepper asked._

" _Well, then I could ask Amadeus over to watch movies and he'd know where to look when he was talking to me. I'm not in the ceiling," FRIDAY said._

" _You're not 'in' a hologram either," Pepper pointed out._

" _I know, but I think it would just feel more natural for both of us if he had eyes to look at while we were talking," FRIDAY argued._

" _Eyes?" Pepper asked archly. "Remember I'm the one that kicked him out of the lab last week when you were trying on avatars."_

" _Okay so I might have used a few models and actresses as my template," FRIDAY admitted. "And maybe the clothes were a little daring."_

" _Open up the folder," Pepper said and a moment later the wall screen showed a series of avatars FRIDAY had been 'trying on'. "This one wasn't bad." Pepper suggested. "But increase the skirt length by at least four inches. I don't care what you two like watching, he doesn't need to see your underwear every time you take a step."_

" _What the hell?" Tony muttered, "Since when do my AI's date and who is this Amadeus?" He looked over Pepper's shoulder, he had to give it to her the avatar she'd picked looked classier than most of those FRIDAY had put together but at the same time she looked a little, well, grown-up next to Tony's mental image of FRIDAY._

* * *

Tony let himself into the library but instead of heading back to the shelves where the oldest books, books he was starting to be able to read with only minimal help from Loki, were housed he browsed the shelves near the armchair Loki favored. He wanted to ask the mage a favor and nervous wasn't his style but here he was, dithering.

Loki turned another page in his book and Tony remembered those slim hands closed around his throat with implacable strength. Loki had made his point about weapons being no worse than the use they were put to and about powerlessness a little too well. From the first it had been hard for Tony to dismiss that he had been at Loki's mercy since waking up in Asgard. Odin was the only person with the power to interfere if Loki chose to hurt him and Odin played favorites: Thor was his son by birth, Loki by adoption and Tony was a potentially useful mortal Odin had picked up once Steve abandoned him. Tony didn't want to put too much faith in Odin coming to his rescue.

But Loki paid attention to what Tony said even when he didn't have the armor to back him up. 'That puts him one up on the Avengers,' Tony thought. 'They never even really gave Bruce or I a chance to explain Ultron. They didn't care what I was trying to do. They didn't even care about what I did. Just about having someone to blame when it blew up in my face. Loki listens when I say something, maybe it's just so that he can manipulate me into changing my mind but he listens. And even when he's scaring the pants off me he's still trying to help. So what if he's got selfish reasons for wanting to stop Thanos? It's still worth doing. I'm not Captain Bullheaded America, looking down on anyone who's got reasons beyond Truth, Goodness and the American Way.' Tony shook his head and wondered what it said about his stability that he accepted Loki's motives for terrifying him as justified, for his own good even.

" _N_ _ot believing would be worse."_

'He was just trying to motivate me. He even gave me the means of defending myself against him.' Tony flexed his hands feeling the weight of the new gauntlets hugging his forearms. Watches weren't the style on Asgard so he'd designed the first pieces of his new armor to look similar to the arm guards both Loki and Thor wore, except in red and gold naturally. The circuitry was hidden in plain sight by blending it into decorative metalwork. Similarly the arc reactor embedded in each gauntlet near the bend of his elbow and the repulsor set just above his wrist, waiting to slide into place over his palms, looked like nothing more than decorative gem stones. The gauntlets were considerable bigger than a watch, consequently Tony had enough material to work with that once they unfolded he was armored from fingertips up over his shoulders with enough left over for the two gauntlets to link across his chest and back. In addition to allowing more freedom of movement in the shoulders the link served the secondary purpose of providing reinforcement for the chest plate over his ribs.

Tony thought about the ridiculous picture he must make: A simple black tee-shirt, because who ever got clothes for him apparently thought AC/DC and One Direction were interchangeable, NOT! -Paired with medieval looking gauntlets. Levis stuffed into knee-high metal boots, with another set of arc reactors placed on the sides of the knees. Like the gauntlets they unfolded to armor him up to the hips.

He wasn't wearing the chest plate or helmet but given this was Asgard Tony hadn't bothered with any sort of disguise for them. In Odin's court armor was more appropriate for a formal appearance than a tie, not to mention more comfortable to wear. He'd kept the central arc reactor, removing it felt like admitting he was afraid of what Steve Rogers could do to him, but the next person who went after it was going to get a nasty surprise. Tony kept the unibeam but he had to sacrifice almost sixty percent of the shielding around the arc protect his ribs instead. To make the four limb-mounted reactors flat enough to fit he'd lost more than half the power they could produce, on a one-to-one comparison against the chest mounted reactor. The next person who thought they'd disabled him by crushing his heart was going to get more than words as a parting shot.

In deference to the local aesthetic Tony had made his new armor less sleek. He'd added a high collar rising from the shoulders and the gloves and boots were more textured. It was just coincidence that the collar would shield his spine from shocks even if someone managed to get another cord around his neck and if the texture on the gloves and boots was sharp enough to make it uncomfortable for anyone trying to get a crushing grip on them, well again total coincidence. Nothing to do with a dark-haired super-soldier squeezing his gauntlet until the metal gave, or a blond one using his ankle for a hand-hold while smashing his boot reactor with a shield. The alloy wasn't the normal Titanium-gold Tony favored. It was better, both lighter and stronger, Tony was seriously tempted to call it Mithril. The alloy had a warm, gold cast that Tony couldn't bring himself to cover with yellow the way he normally did. He also deepened the reds from hot-rod to garnet.

Tony didn't normally wear the breastplate, or even the boots in his rooms. The gauntlets weren't a sign of mistrust. When in Rome, after all Asgardians seemed to look at being completely disarmed as akin to being naked. 'It was just etiquette to keep a weapon on myself at all times, nothing that could hurt Loki's feelings and he practically suggested it anyway,' Tony told himself. He closed his eyes for a moment, then slid the book he'd been pretending to glance over back onto the shelf.

"Rud- Loki, what would you think about teaching Loptr magic?" Tony asked casually.

Loki looked up from the book he'd been reading and just stared for a moment. Then he started laughing.

"Come on, I'm serious here!" Tony exclaimed. "The kid lost his mom, who happens to also be the only one who thought his natural talents were worth developing. You've got those same skills and besides it would be good for him to see another guy working magic… And no I did not just suggest you as a role-model. Fuck, I totally did. Wait, modification, you're teaching me about magic, watching you teach someone to actually use it would be beneficial and I could moderate your influence on the kid."

Loki wiped away tears as he tried and failed to keep himself from dissolving into totally undignified giggles or possibly hysteria.

"Alright already!" Tony huffed. "Neither of us are exactly choice role-model material, but work with me here Rudolph!"

* * *

"There have been several developments in the case of Sgt. Barnes which might bring you peace," the Odin-clone told Tony. "The scientists of Wakanda and your own company collaborated to eradicate the Winter Soldier programing from the Soldier's mind. While they were successful he remains in custody in Wakanda until such time as he can demonstrate that he no longer presents a danger to the public."

"B.A.R.F.?" Tony asked curiously.

"Your Lady Pepper refers to the technology exclusively as Binarily Augmented Retro Framing," Odin replied and Tony snickered.

"Pep does _not_ share my sense of humor," Tony explained. "Or at least she knows I get a kick out of watching her be all prim and proper when relaying the crap I come up with. Rhodey's even better. I used to make-up really dirty acronyms so I could watch him to try to keep a straight face while presenting them to the top brass until Obie had a fit and got the board on my case about 'sophomoric nonsense'."

"There is no more danger of the Winter Soldier programing being activated," Odin reaffirmed.

"Did they manage to fix the mental glitch where he and Rogers both go off their rocker the moment someone looks cross-eyed at the other one?" Tony asked distantly.

"Possibly not, which is why he remains in custody in Wakanda while Rogers is imprisoned in the United States," Odin said. "While in custody Barnes has been recounting all the details he could recall from his missions as the Winter Soldier. As a consequence of the information he provided two of former handlers were identified and arrested. Including the individual who ordered your parent's assassination."

Tony sat down heavily. "Really?"

"I am not in the habit of lying," Odin assured him.

"That's- The person that gave the order?"

"Was dragged out of a prosperous retirement from his service to HYDRA and currently is being held pending a trial that is little more than a formality as he has confessed."

In the doorway Loki smiled to himself. It hadn't been any trouble at all employ Hlidskjalf's abilities in assistance of the Midgardian manhunt. The Odin-clone had matters to discuss with Heimdall anyway, if that conversation just happened to distract the guardian while Loki used the paths to slip away to Midgard for a moment it was hardly anything to mention. He'd always wanted to try out the spell that caused its victim to feel as if they were being flayed alive every moment of the day and if his words might have suggested that relief could be found by unburdening a guilty conscious… Well he hadn't precisely promised that the man's torment could be ended by confessing. It wasn't even worth mentioning, he'd barely lifted a finger after all.

It didn't bring back the dead but Loki remembered the satisfaction when the Kursed who'd murdered his mother had been swallowed up by his own grenade and hoped Tony was feeling something similar.

 **Note:** India Eisley with red hair from "Kite" is the 'template' FRIDAY is using for her look


	8. Peer Pressure

**Lima to Stockholm**

 **Chapter Eight: Peer Pressure**

Loki stood in Odin's study between the Loptr-clone and the clone of his normal form that he used as a placeholder whenever he needed to leave the royal apartments as he tried to decide who he wanted to be for the upcoming magic lesson. After several minutes he held out his hand to Loptr. The younger of the clones gave him a dirty look but obediently matched Loki's hand with his own.

Loki felt a swirling vortex of memories as the clone's recent experiences swept through him. He felt it reach for his childhood memories, wanting greater depth to it's existence. Loki resisted the clone's digging for a moment then got caught up in Tony's empathetic response to learning of Frigga's death and the clone took what it wanted. When the magic settled Loki, Loptr stretched adjusting to his smaller frame and the heightened intensity of his emotions.

Loptr poked his head out into the garden to check that Tony wasn't around then nodded to his older counterpart. While the Loki-clone headed back to the library, Loptr ducked into Tony's room.

"Harry Potter, you're just in time!" Tony exclaimed holding up a small box and dish arrangement. "I need my favorite wizard to do a little magic for me."

Loptr grinned. "What does it do?" he asked pointing to the box.

"With any luck it'll let me screw with magic for a change," Tony replied grinning, "Not to slight you but I want to give sorcerers as much reason to hate science as I hate magic."

"Okay…" Loptr eyed the box with new wariness. "What do I do?"

"Just cast a spell," Tony said. "Something small would probably be better… On and come over here. The range on this thing is crap."

A mischievous light entered Loptr's eyes as he formed a ball of magic between his hands. Tony pointed the dish at him and suddenly the well ordered ball of power became a bag of snakes. The magic wrested itself from Loptr's control in a blast of uncontrolled power that slammed the boy into the wall behind him.

"Loptr!" Loki heard Tony shout but it was all he could do to hold on his child-form. In a blurry haze he sensed Tony dropping to his knees behind him and felt cautious hands palpating the back of his head searching for blood or swelling. "Loki! Get your ass in here!" Tony exclaimed. "Come on kid, be okay. Damn it, damn it, that wasn't supposed to happen."

Loki sighed in relief as his magic stabilized without reverting him to his adult form. He blinked blearily up at Tony and smiled, "For science?" he asked repeating one of the engineer's favorite justifications when he nearly blew himself up.

"It looks a lot worse from this angle," Tony muttered. He steadied Loptr as the boy sat up. "Maybe you should just stay still until someone who knows more about first aid than me has looked at you."

"Asgardians are sturdier than you Midgardians," the Loki-clone announced dismissively as he joined them. "He's fine."

"You could at least check him," Tony snapped.

Loki and Loptr shared a look, "I'd do him no favors by coddling him," Loki said his thoughts straying to Frigga.

"Since when is it 'coddling' someone to check and make sure they're not hurt after some idiot blasts them halfway through a wall?" Tony demanded angrily.

"He'd get as bad in the martial arts training required of every highborn Asir boy. If he tries to use his magic his instructors will take it upon themselves to correct him," Loki sneered. To make matters worse all the weapons he'd shown real talent with were lighter ones, Loki recalled, daggers more befitting a woman or a peasant's spear suited his speed and his relatively light build where heavier weapons only handicapped him against larger fighters like Thor or Volstagg. Sif had spent long, brutal hours training to master the sword she'd inherited when her father died without a male heir but Loki had his magic studies to keep up with. Fandral had employed a less laborious method of sparing himself mockery, whenever anyone made a derogatory mention of the light sword that he handled so well he simply made a comment about how at least he didn't need magic to keep up with the real warriors and then he'd stood back as his detractors turned their attention to Loki.

Tony's mouth thinned, he wrapped an arm around Loptr's shoulders. "Your dad decided getting involved would be coddling you, and your mom went along with it," he said, recognizing that Loki was speaking from personal experience. A stray thought crossed Tony's mind, 'Howard would have done something if I'd ever been physically attacked by one of my teachers instead of just my classmates.' Although the grades Tony had skipped meant his bullies had technically been adults by the time he'd gotten to college while he'd still been a child. Rhodey had used that, the potential legal consequences of anyone over eighteen laying a hand on Tony, to derail more than one confrontation after befriending Tony in college.

"Odin was king, Loki said. "He said much by saying nothing at all. He did not forbid me from fighting with my magic. And he did not forbid my instructors for attempting to beat it out of me."

"What about Thor?"

Loki laughed, "Thor begged me to concede. He said I was only harming myself with my stubbornness. He said that I would be accepted if only I would do things the right way, no matter how ill-suited I was to Asgard's definition of the right and proper way of being."

"So what did you do?" Tony asked.

"I fought with the weapons that suited me, I fought with magic. I continued even when they called me a coward, when they called it base trickery. My instructors said I was useless and pitiful and proved it to the other trainees by forcing me to my knees over and over again every time I dared to bring my magic into the arena. In that way they demonstrated Asgard's superiority of force of arms over those like the elves who cravenly use magic to fight. But I didn't quit. I kept fighting my way until our instructors couldn't beat me anymore." Loki smiled, his expression brittle and false. "Once they couldn't defeat me their insults became the jealous braying of powerless fools. I took the hand of the last of my instructors who dared try to say that magic had no place among the warriors of Asgard and then it was him who had no place. I won, therefore I was right but they didn't forgive me for playing their game better than they could."

"I hate Asgard," Tony said quietly. "I've always held on to the belief that society would evolve along with our tech. That we'd get over that sort of idiocy. You're living proof that no matter how advanced a society becomes there's still room for prejudice… Hell, you're proof that we'll never even get over the whole jocks versus nerds thing."

"I'll still take this over life under Thanos' thumb," Loki said.

Tony absently drummed his fingers against the spot where the Arc Reactor had been as he paged through screens of notes he'd assembled about the Vanir's evolution as they'd turned their tech to enhancing themselves.

It hadn't just been an innate ability to effect magic fields that they'd sought, it had been healing, strength and longevity. If the histories could be believed the increase in strength had been an unplanned side-effect. The genetic alterations found in the earliest records reminded Tony of a slightly less ambitious version of Extremis and Tony had stabilized Extremis by dialing it back considerably. But over several generations the changes built on themselves and had transformed the Vanir from a healthier, hardier individual into something more comparable with a super soldier. "Us humans and our need for instant gratification," Tony muttered to himself thinking of Bruce and all the others who had suffered in attempts to recreate the experiment that had created Captain America.

"Wish I knew how they got away from thinking of it as a weapon," Tony said. He'd actually had his doubts about the history's claim that the Vanir enhancement program had only been meant as a means to improve the quality of life. In Tony's experience for every Bruce Banner or Maya Hansen who looked at the serum and saw advancements in health care there was a General Ross or Aldrich Killian waiting in the wings to weaponize it. Tony knew exactly how much easier it was to get military funding, get good at making night vision for military applications then once you could make them cheaply suggest that it might be useful avoiding deer while driving at night too.

Still the broad distribution and multi-generational timeline claimed by the Vanir histories was backed-up independent evidence that the entire population had been enhanced by the time the Bifrost connected Vanaheim and Asgard. That spoke against the Vanir enhancing their population as a tool of war. An arms race was always about having better weapons than the other guy so you play your cards close to your chest, which wasn't really a possibility when every last teenaged Romeo in the population could hand over your research to the other side.

From what Tony had seen Asgard was nothing if not a warrior society, it seemed like their development of enhanced people paralleled Vanaheim's so how did they NOT focus on its applicability as a weapon? How did they decide to enhance the entire population, maintain a level playing field, instead of scraping tooth and nail for an advantage? Tony just couldn't figure out what he was missing.

He could fill in the holes in their technological records because of Extremis, because he'd shared a lab with Bruce Banner and reviewed Helen Cho's work since he was funding it. He'd seen Steve Roger's DNA work-up because Steve allowed Bruce to take a blood sample in hopes of helping Bruce to stabilize his own condition. Tony lived in the heart of Earth's cutting edge work in the field of human enhancement, all he needed was the sketchiest of outlines to understand what Vanaheim had been up to so long ago, but the societal drivers remained a mystery which was only deepened by his own ability to see the potential for weaponizing any technology almost without trying.

"And how did a patriarchal society end up engineering an ability like magic and then putting it solely in the hands of their women?"

The oddly domestic, oddly coherent dreams continued and as the months passed Tony found himself dreading sleep less. There were still the nights that were haunted by his parents' brutal murder but those dreams were tapering off and there was always the chance that sleep would mean watching his and Pepper's imaginary daughter growing older.

Nettie was turning into a toddler and he dreamed of teaching her to use tools while Pepper sat on the couch in his lab with a stack of her ever present paperwork. Harley and the Spider-kid wandered in and out of his dreams, usually on opposite sides of the country but sometimes together. He saw their progress in fixing Rhodey's legs and it was frustrating that he couldn't reach out and point them in the right direction but they were finding their own way.

In Malibu Harley's sister hung around in the background teaching FRIDAY strategy games and playing with the 'bots. Tony wished he'd paid more attention to her because people who saw his AI's as thinking individuals were few and far between Occasionally he caught glimpses of Happy making goo-goo eyes at Harley's mom.

In New York FRIDAY's boyfriend was becoming a regular presence in the Tower's upper levels. Amadeus Cho was smart and smart-mouthed and way too much like Tony as a teenager in Tony's opinion because clearly the universe hated him. Even if it was all some bizarre flight of fancy, Tony was still pleased to note Vision's habit watching the boyfriend suspiciously.

"What I can't figure out is why Loptr doesn't show up in the dreams," Tony said idly to Loki one evening. "I keep thinking he ought to be there."

"Why would he be part of your dreams of Midgard?" Loki asked, startled.

"It's not Earth I'm dreaming about."

Tony watched as Loki and Loptr practiced casting illusions, scanning them with the instruments he'd built to detect magic. The two of them were playing an elaborate game of hide and seek where the hider would fill Tony's workshop with illusionary people and objects while the seeker would try to determine which one was actually the other in disguise, preferably without brute force disillusionment spells.

Loki's illusionary people wandered about the room and conversed with each other naturally, giving him the ability to slip from one disguise to another without being detected, unlike Loptr. Loptr's people had a stiff, static quality to them, a uniformity of features and lack of spontaneity that gave him away.

Tony looked up from his readings and surreptitiously caught Loptr's eye. He nodded toward an older woman who hobbled about using a cane, glaring ferociously at any of the other illusions who crossed her path. Loptr grinned, he wandered idly about the room inspecting the various illusions while sidling up to the one Tony had indicated. Then he turned and suddenly lunged at the woman, shattering the illusion with his touch. Loki tumbled to the ground and ended up with Loptr sitting on his chest. Both Tony and the boy laughing.

"Hmpf," Loki sniffed as he rolled to pin Loptr and cast a ball of magical energy in Tony's direction.

Tony threw up an arm and the energy exploded as it struck his gauntlet. Most of the force was channeled back toward Loki but Tony still stumbled back a step, it had the kick of a bazooka.

Loki lowered his guard and let Loptr scramble away. "Impressive," he told Tony as he rolled to his feet.

Tony smiled, "Since I met you I have _hated_ magic, now it's your turn to play catch up. It's your turn to try to figure out how it's possible that I'm doing what I do."

"That is nothing new," Loki said. "The only difference is that you're doing it intentionally. I still don't know how you blocked the Mind Stone's power but, perhaps, now you do? If we can harness that then there is hope for the universe."

"I'm getting close, it wasn't what I built the Arc Reactor to do, but it distorts magic-fields," Tony said. "If you'd been a few years earlier… Well, Palladium doesn't have the same effect. How many of these stones does Thanos have anyway?"

"There are six Infinity Stones in all of existence. When I fell into Thanos' clutches he had two Stone, the Soul Stone and the Mind Stone. I took the Mind Stone with me when I defected from Thanos' service and you eventually gave it a home in your Vision. The Tesseract is the third, the Space Stone. It has remained in the vaults of Asgard since Thor brought it back to us. Five years ago, during the Convergence a fourth Stone appeared, the Reality Stone or the Aether. After I was revived I convinced Odin to send it far from Thanos' reach. Evidence of the Power Stone's use has been seen in a distant area of space, although closer to the place where I hid the Aether than I would like. A year ago similar evidence placed the Time Stone on Earth. If Thanos gains any more of the Stone it could spell disaster for all life," Loki declared. "First we must prevent him from acquiring any more of the Stones.

"I believe Thanos' personal power to be greater than the power of any single Infinity Stone and the Soul Stone vastly amplifies his abilities. If we hope to defeat him, we must nullify the power of the Soul Stone. The Tesseract, the Scepter and the Hamingja are all ancient devices, deriving from a time before the rise of Asgard. We were able to contain the Aether once it was removed from Malekith but you are the only person in the memory of my culture to build a new means of accessing the Stones' power: Vision. Beyond that you nullified the Mind Stone's power, if anyone can find the means of robbing Thanos of the Soul Stone's power it is you, Tony Stark."

Tony grimaced, "Way to pile the pressure on."

"Once we've stymied Thanos' efforts to gain more of the Stones, fought our way past his armies and defeated the Soul Stone's power, all that will be left for us to accomplish is killing Thanos himself… His rise to power was legendary in Buri's time and his immortality is more than mere rumor." Loki smiled the broad, insane grin that Tony remembered from the Battle of Manhattan, "And you thought my plan to conquer Earth was an exercise in futility. But this time I promise you that I do not lack for conviction."

"Joy," Tony muttered. "It wouldn't be any fun if it wasn't impossible right?"

Several nights later Tony interrupted Loki's reading of the Vanaheim histories by breaking into laughter. "What is so amusing?" Loki asked.

"Just… I can't wait to tell Loptr," Tony started snickering again.

"I demand you tell me," Loki said sounding more like a pouting child than someone who'd once tried to conquer the Earth.

"Your society says guys who can use magic are freaks?" Tony said grinning. "Can we say karmic retribution leading to jealous denial?"

Loki skimmed back over what he'd read then turned to Tony for enlightenment. While All-speak rendered the words of the ancient text familiar to him there were too many lost concepts that the author had presumed his audience would be familiar with that which Loki feeling like he was the one reading in a foreign language rather than the translator.

"I've been puzzling over it for ages," Tony continued. "Given Asgard's dark age notions around gender and the fact that magic is an engineered ability not a natural one why do women have it and not men? Answer: Someone fucked up. According to what you just read, back when your Mom's ancestors were tinkering with their genetics, they MEANT for guys to be the ones who got magic."

"Where does it say that?" Loki demanded.

Tony waved off Loki's confusion. "There's this whole set of genetic disorders on my planet that almost only affect guys, X-linked recessive inheritance. Guys only have one X-Chromosome so they only need one bad gene for the disease to show up but women have two so if either of their X-Chromosomes are good then they'll just be a carrier," he explained. "That's what the ancient Vanir were using as their template when they were inserting the ability to manipulate magic fields into your genes. But the joke's on them because magic isn't a simple genetic trait and it actually takes an interaction between a couple genes, all conveniently not found on the Y-chromosome, for the ability to manifest. The odds of getting everything you need are much, much higher if you've got two X-chromosomes. In fact it's so high that most of the guys with magic were probably XXY." Tony grimaced, "Which might have help to lead to some of the stereotyping you and Loptr get pounded with. But hey, it's speculated that my country's first president had the condition.

"Anyway, while your people's patience served them well with their path to the super soldier serum, it bit them when it came to magic. They were generations down the road before they realized that they took a wrong turn at Albuquerque, too late to backtrack. So, of course, the only thing the guys could do then was insist that they never wanted magic in the first place and relegate high tech fields to 'women's work'... Is it just girls who get magic in all the realms or were there some realms that weren't so hung up on preserving a patriarchy?"

Loki made an effort to collect his scattered wits. "Among the Vanir and Asir male magic users are all but unheard of but among the Elves, both Dark and Light, the ability to do magic is practically universal for both sexes, although their magical strength doesn't compare to mine. Dwarves make machines to control magic, they look on the other race's sorcerers with great suspicion. I have no idea what is considered normal for Jotunheim, Muspelheim or Niflheim."

"Dwarves don't use magic? You mean instead of re-engineering all this Asgardian tech to work for me I could have just been asking Odin to shop on Nidavellir instead of Asgard?" Tony exclaimed.

"You learn more this way," Loki said archly.

"Asshole," Tony returned.

"You know the real story about New Mexico?" Tony asked Loki idly as he kept one eye on the scan he was running on Gungnir. "Thor gets all flustered every time I try to work out what's missing from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files and I figure you won't have an issue telling embarrassing stories about your big brother."

The Mind Stone's coding had been blindingly obvious, leaping out at him the moment he scanned the gem. Tony had initially suspected that the coding on the spear would also be found at the molecular level but he'd wasted weeks missing the forest for the trees. The spear had been forged using a technique similar to Japan's thousand folds method, but without the inevitable homogenizing effect. The folds in the spear were still distinctly two layers. The method lacked the utter perfection of the Mind Gem. The coding was harder to translate for the errors and less complex for the need to have repetition to patch those errors. Easier for Tony to imagine how to duplicate the feat, but much less impressive once he'd dove into dissecting the technology behind it.

"Thor was ashamed?" Loki asked. "He should be. He picked a fight he couldn't possibly win, nearly got me, himself and his idiot friends killed. Not to mention nearly reigniting the war with the Frost Giants, all because one of them called him 'Princess'."

"Why am I thinking there's more to the story?" Tony asked.

Loki wondered if he was spending too much time as Loptr because he answered as if Frigga had called him on a falsehood. "I might have had something to do with arranging a small provocation, setting the stage for Thor to parade his foolhardy pursuit of glory before Odin's eyes. I didn't force him into anything, I even advised him against rashness, not that he listened."

"Yeah," Tony's laugh had a dark edge. "I was good at that game when I was younger too: Telling someone not to do something with just the right infection to ensure that they would so I could plead innocence later."

Loki shrugged, "In all honestly, it did go much farther than I'd intended," he said. "Back then I never would have risked Thor's life. And my own was endangered by Thor's thoughtlessness more than often enough without my assistance. It was Heimdall's fault! I neglected to account for his willingness to slit his own throats if he but suspected that it would inconvenience me."

"Thor led us to Jotunheim," Loki continued falling into a story-teller's rhythm. "Almost immediately we were discovered and surrounded, outnumbered four to one, not to mention that each of the Frost Giants was twice our size. Well, Volstagg may have counted as two-thirds a Frost Giant, more if girth is the primary measure of size. Only a fool would have provoked a fight against those odds but Thor's pride kept him from seeing the danger we were in, he struck the first blow and violated the truce between Asgard and Jotunheim." Loki looked down, "One of them touched me. I thought I'd been infected but the truth was worse. Fa- Odin came to our rescue, he was furious with Thor, at long last. For Thor's arrogance Odin summoned the ancient magics of Asgard, stripped him of his god-hood and sent him into exile on Midgard. As both a reminder of his failings and a path to redemption Odin sent Mjolnir to Asgard after Thor, having bespelled the hammer to unleash Thor's power only when one who was worthy grasped it."

"Wait," Tony interrupted. " _Odin_ put the 'whosoever is worthy' clause on the hammer?"

"Yes, why?" Loki blinked at Tony's sudden intensity.

"It's changeable?" Tony pressed. "Not something embedded in the core nature of the weapon?"

"I suppose."

Tony shut his eyes, calling up memories of the scans he'd performed on the Mind Stone. He turned to the readouts from the spear skimming through the first few repetitions of the programing, mentally filtering out the errors in the coding. "It was meaningless," he said.

"What?" Loki asked.

Tony swept a hand through the holographic readouts sending them spinning into nothingness. "Vision wielding the hammer, it has nothing to do with worthiness, just processing speed, viral coding overwriting Mjolnir's programing because Vision didn't _know_ that he wasn't supposed to be able to wield it." Tony's voice broke, "I thought the Hammer proved that I'd built something unquestionably good."

"It does not mean you did not," Loki replied quickly. "Do Vision's action not prove his worthiness more surely than any momentary test?"

"You don't understand," Tony said. "I can't- If I'm going to build weapons again, I have to be sure. Without that, I can't."

"You have to!" Loki exclaimed. He grabbed Tony, lifting him off the floor and shaking him. "You can't abandon me now."

"Back off!" Tony snarled powering up the repulsor.

And Loki did. "That won't be enough to stop Thanos," he said as he left the room, locking the door behind him. "You can't fight a war alone," he said as he left Tony alone to stew.

Two days passed.

Tony glared at the servant who silently left his meal by the door and retreated without so much as looking in his direction. "The roomservice here sucks. I ordered mead, beer, wine, whatever the fuck you Ass types ferment, I want some," he demanded.

Five days.

In Odin's form Loki leaned forward, trying to make eye contact with the heavily cowled Niflheim ambassador. "There has been documented, confirmed activity from the Space Stone, the Reality Stone and the Mind Stone. There are signs of the Time Stone and Power Stone's use as well. Look to your texts, verify for yourself what it means. The end of days is upon us."

'And no matter what you do we'll all die if Stark won't get over himself and figure out how to stop the stones,' Loki thought to himself.

Four hour later he was in talks with a representative of Jotunheim. "As reparation for the damages done to your world by Asgard's legitimate regent, we return the Casket of Ancient Winters to you," Loki declared solemnly.

"Why now?" the Frost Giant demanded in a voice like the groaning of ice in glacier. "It has been six years since Asgard's cowardly attack on our world."

"Have you examined the signs?" Loki asked. "I wish to restore Jotunheim's strength at arms because the enemy of all life is once more on the move. I have tried to ask you for an alliance against our mutual foe but you refused me. Still Jotunheim is closer to his current position than Asgard. Even if you won't fight with Asgard you may yet serve to aid our cause: The better fight you put up the more his strength will be sapped before he reaches my kingdom."

'The trick I was counting on may yet fail me, betray me, but I won't surrender without exhausting every last gambit at my disposal. The mad titan wouldn't accept my surrender anyway.'

Seven days.

Tony turned away from the collection of tubes and flasks he'd assembled in the center of his workbench and grabbed the bowl of plum skins and mashed potatoes that he'd set up in the sun in hopes that it would ferment. He scrapped off a little of the top and put it under a microscope. "And we have yeast. We are in business."

Twelve days

Loki came back from the throne room to find Loptr reaching for the door to Tony's workshop. "What are you doing?" he demanded as he grabbed his younger self by the collar and dragged him away from the door. The boy vanished into Loki in a swirl of loneliness and hostility.

Fifteen days.

 _Steve held Tony's arms in an unbreakable grip while Natasha delicately removed the arc reactor from his chest._

" _I was your friend!" Tony protested struggling futilely._

 _Natasha rolled her eyes, "Your ability to delude yourself was convenient but really Tony stop being ridiculous. You read the report, no one ever wanted you on the team."_

" _I'm sorry Tony," Steve said with sincere regret as Tony felt the shrapnel in his chest start to move. "I wouldn't do this but Bucky needs it."_

" _I'm not sorry," Clint remarked barely sparing Tony a glance. "Can't we hurry this up?"_

 _Steve let Tony fall to the ground as blood bubbled up in the engineer's throat. Steve pulled Barnes' arm over his shoulder and walked away without looking back. Natasha and Clint fell in on either side of them. The arc reactor glowed in Natasha's hand as they vanished in the distance._

" _Don't go!" Tony tried to shout after them. "Don't leave me!"_

" _Oh Tony, Tony, you thought they cared about you?" Obie shook his head sadly. He sat down beside Tony and watched disinterestedly as the younger man began to choke on his own blood. "You never do learn do you? No one wants you except for what they can use you for."_

Seventeen days.

Loki's female clone added several harmless but high tech devices, toys really, to the tray bearing Tony's lunch. Then she sent the new, nearly mindless clone Loki had created to serve Tony until the engineer relented and started working on making weapons again on it's way.

Twenty-two days

Tony yelped as the wires he'd stuck into the keyhole heated to white-hot almost instantly, melting in the lock. "Fuck you Reindeer Games!" he shouted at the door. "Like I want to see you anyway!" For good measure he kicked the door, it made a hollow, empty sound as the armored toes of his boot met the heavy wood.

Thirty days.

Loki sat in his bed, his arms wrapped around his head, trying to block out the sound of Tony screaming. Over the weeks since Loki stopped speaking to him, stopped using his powers to send Tony glimpses of his loved ones on Midgard, Tony's nightmares had become steadily worse. Loki silenced his monitoring spell but the sudden quiet was unnatural after more than a year of hearing Tony's movements, his breathing whenever Loki was alone in his room.

It didn't take long for the oppressive silence to drive Loki from the room that had been his mother's.

Before he went out Loki spent some time staring into a mirror while he adjusted his appearance. He made his hair a reddish-brown and muddied his green eyes into a common shade of hazel. He broadened his shoulders and rounded his face then added a beard with a grimace. He examined himself for any remaining traces of Loki in his appearance then when he was satisfied that there were none he dressed himself in undyed leathers to complete the image of an attractive but thoroughly unremarkable Asir guardsman. He got halfway out the door then spun back to the mirror. The beard vanished like a bad memory. He lost the breadth he'd added to his shoulders plus a bit then took a few inches from his hieght, trading them for a woman's willowy figure. He reformed his clothes into a simple skirt and blouse.

Several hours later he returned to his rooms, rushed straight to the bathroom and scrubbed himself raw.

Thirty-five days.

Tony was at least seventy percent certain that his homemade booze wasn't poisonous, it only tasted like paint-thinner. He threw back another glass and glared at the Toothpick of Destiny. "Why couldn't you just work as advertised," he growled at Gungnir. "Is it so fucking bad to want to know I did something right just once in my fucking life. But no you have to take that away from me."

Forty days

"How are you even here?" Loki demanded as he dragged Loptr away from Tony's door for the dozenth time. "I command you to cease being!"

Loptr squirmed free of Loki's hold and darted into the garden. "I hate you!" he screamed. "You and your stupid pride! You ruin everything."

Loki summoned a burst of magic and suspended the boy in mid-air long enough for him to force the clone to be reabsorbed into himself. The rush of the boy's emotions left him almost dizzy, the boy's furious desire for the one person who made him feel safe went to war against the adult's refusal to back down. Loki turned and saw the Odin-clone frowning at him severely. "What do you expect me to do old man? Just let my magic run wild?" he demanded angrily.

Then he cast a barrier around the door the strength of which far exceeded his younger self's abilities, just in case. A moment later Loki recast the spell to ensure that he kept all the active magic on Loptr's side of the door. On Tony's side it would simply power the resultant explosion if the engineer chose to use his magic dispelling tech on it.

Fifty days

The bathtub gin burned as it went down but working on weapon designs while more than half-drunk was a time honored tradition as far as Tony was concerned. He'd finished analyzing the spear, he knew how to replicate the so-called spell woven into its metal. He already had the best biometric locks ever designed by man making sure that only those he chose could use his armors. With what he'd learned from the Gungnir he could lock every weapon that he made so that it could only be raised in the defense of Earth.

Tony laughed harshly and poured himself another drink. Ultron had been designed to protect the Earth, that hadn't stopped the AI from looking at the cesspit that was humanity and reasoning that what they most needed protection from was themselves. It hadn't stopped Ultron from concluding that the best way to save humanity was to wipe out so much of it that society would crumble. It hadn't kept Ultron concluding that the hope that the survivors would rebuild something better from the ashes of an extinction level event was the best way to save humanity from itself.

"Goddamn, fucking Zeroth Law. Babies shouldn't try to decide what's best for humanity."

Sixty Days

"How can I stand by while a pretty girl looks so sad?"

Loki looked up from his mead in shocked disbelief as Fandral claimed the seat next to his with a charming smile that Loki had seen turned on too many girls to count. Loki turned away.

Fandral put an arm around Loki's shoulders. "Believe me you'll feel better for getting it off your chest." For the briefest moment his eyes fell to Loki's cleavage but he quickly recovered and gave him a sympathetic look. "I can be a very good listener when it means looking into eyes as lovely as yours. And if there is a dragon to slay or a scoundrel to smite to restore the smile to your face know that I am your man." Of all of Thor's friends Fandral had been Loki's most despised, and yet he knew the man had spoken truly. As much as Fandral was looking for someone to warm his bed, Loki knew from witnessing it in the past that if Fandral's lady-love of the night had need of a hero he'd put aside base desires at least long enough to undertake her quest.

Fandral folded his arms on the table then leaned his chin on them. He stared up at Loki patiently.

After several minutes Loki gave in. "I am doomed to lose him," he said. "Even if I win I still won't be able to keep him and I have no one else."

"Cryptic," Fandral replied. "My first impulse is to offer myself in 'his' place but I suspect it isn't so simple?"

Loki gave Fandral a lopsided smirk, "Your reputation precedes you, good Sir. Every woman who catches your eye must inevitably lose you to the next."

Fandral bowed his head slightly, not denying it. "Then allow me succor you in your moment of grief," he shrugged carelessly, "anticipated grief."

Loki hesitated. Fandral was less brawny than was typical for an Asir and his reputation didn't have to exaggerate his looks. Loki didn't say yes but he didn't say no either. After allowing Fandral to ply him with more drinks until the tavern closed Loki didn't protest when Fandral's offer to walk him home ended at Fandral's own rooms.

As they undressed each other Loki used his magic to turn Fandral's hair dark and give his skin olive tones. "You're a Seidkonur?" Fandral asked as he turned his hand back and forth, staring at it.

"Do you mind?" Loki asked.

"Well, I don't particularly care if it's not me you're with in your mind," Fandral replied. "I'm happy with your body in my bed. It will wear off won't it?"

"As soon as I'm gone."

Ninety days

Tony had designed upgrades for War Machine and Spider-Man, for Harley, Happy, Pepper and FRIDAY that would defend them against magical attacks and the direct effects of the Infinity Stones. He even made defensive armaments for Mercedes, Marlena and May in case there was more to his dreams than wistful thinking.

He designed new missiles for Iron Man and War Machine that should punch through the side of a Chitauri warship with ease and redesigned the Widow's Bite to pack more punch than they ever had- Black Widows were Spiders right? And Peter was going to need harsher offensive capabilities against the Chitauri. He made plans to give Vision greater access to and control over the Mind Stone's power.

Tony withheld critical details from all the written plans, because he was going to build them himself. Only that meant he couldn't go any further with the equipment in his workshop. To start with he was going to need a forge.

The Jericho missile Ten Rings had wanted from him so long ago was a fly swatter next to the weapons he was designing to take on the Chitauri fleet. Tony knew he'd have to forge the metals for the key components himself to build it into the very core of his new weapons that they could only be used by the people he trusted to have them. Still there weren't enough people Tony trusted for them to defend an entire plant on their own. He thought about creating new AIs to bulk up their ranks but Ultron's spector stayed his hand.

Tony created anti-magic armors that were scaled back enough to mass-produce and committed the entire design to record. He made versions that could be installed in tanks and planes. Odin could give it to his own armies and to those of Earth, Tony wouldn't stop him. He wrote up plans to borrow the Tesseract to see if he could find a way to separate the Arc Reactor's Anti-Infinity Stone properties from the energy output properties that made it such a tantalizing power source for weapons. Still Tony knew that Thanos had the reserves of an entire quadrant of the galaxy to throw at the Earth, defensive measures wouldn't be enough to keep him from swarming the planet… It wouldn't keep Thanos from destroying the planet if Earth frustrated him enough.

Tony made a second pass at what he'd learned from Gungnir and started working out the coding he'd need to key everything he built to self-destruct when Thanos was dead. Then he went back and did the work again to ensure that it would maintain enough functionality to get its user home safe before becoming completely useless.

He re-engineered the still to increase its output. Then he started designing equipment for Thor, Bruce, Loki, Odin, T'Challa and his bodyguards, for heroes he'd never met but who had seemed to be doing more good than harm. They still wouldn't be enough to oppose Thanos and win.

He hoarded the still's output for a few days and got blindingly drunk. His head pounding from the worst hang-over of his life, Tony sat down and started designing gear for the renegade Avengers. Still not enough but with the Earth in the balance he couldn't discount resources just because they'd betrayed him. Rogers could still be counted on to defend the Earth, Barnes needed a place to live after all.

Ninety-nine days.

Loki slipped back into Odin study, still in one of his female forms, his clothing in disarray. "Loki," the Odin clone said disapprovingly. Loki flinched and instantly shifted back to his normal form. His gaze dropped to the floor as he felt the remains of the night's activities resettling on his skin.

"This impasse has gone on too long," Odin stated. "Fix things with your armor-smith."

"Who do I have to be to make him understand?" Loki demanded in return.

Odin frowned but before he could say anything they heard a crash from the garden. Both of them ran out and saw Loptr sprawled in the flowerbed, broken bits from the porch railing that had been across from Tony's door scattered around him.

Odin knelt beside the boy as if to check him for injuries but Loki grabbed the clone's hand and reabsorbed him. In return he got a rush of pain and gut clenching fear. 'What if I never see him again?'

"Tell me!" Loki repeated. "Who am I supposed to be?" His form destabilized and he rapidly cycled through Odin's form, several generic male forms he used for errands, his favorite female form, Loptr.

Staring up at Odin through Loptr's eyes a memory hit Loki with the force of a freight train.

 _Thor's shoulder dug into his side uncomfortably as his brother all but carried him into Odin's study. Loki's vision greyed out with every jolting step Thor took._

" _You should be training," Odin said sternly._

" _But Dad! He hit Loki really hard. I thought he was dead!" Thor protested, his voice high and panicky. Loki felt blood dripping off his ear and chin, plastering his hair against his skull._

 _Odin scooped him up. The sudden change sent a wave of nausea through Loki. He twisted away from his father, retching miserably. "Go back to your training Thor," Odin ordered._

" _But Dad!"_

" _Head wounds bleed, accustom yourself to it!" Odin snapped. He spun on his heel, carrying Loki deeper into the Royal couple's quarters. When Thor moved to follow Odin kicked the door shut in his face. "Frigga!"_

 _The feel of his mother's hand on his head, her magic rushing through him relaxed Loki. He passed out as Odin lowered him onto a divan. He awoke later. Frigga was still stroking his hair, his brain was full of fog and his eyelids too heavy to lift._

" _I don't know what I was thinking when I bought him home," Odin's voice rumbled. "He doesn't belong here."_

Odin reached out to Loki but he shied away, stumbling over to lean against the wall by Tony's door, still cycling uncontrollably between forms.

"His Midgardians endlessly extol the virtue of being oneself." Loki giggled as he slid his back down the wall until he was sitting in a huddle. "Have you ever heard anything so absurd? I've proved, over and over again, I can have anything I want:" He took Odin's form "respect" Loptr's "love, caring," a female form, "lovers vying for my favor…" for a moment he took his normal form then blue spilled across his skin like paint, "life. All I have to do is erase myself from the picture."

"Loki, I- I didn't want-"

"Go away!" Loki exclaimed. "You're nothing, a shade, a figment of my imagination. If you're going to play Odin at least be believable! You apologizing on his behalf is a level of patheticness I refuse to stoop to. Just go away."

Odin's shoulders slumped as he left Loki curled up on the floor outside of Tony's room.

Ninety-nine days.

Tony tugged on the doorknob leading to the garden. "I made them you idiot." He started shivering. "I made them. Come back." But Loki had long since silenced his monitoring spell to keep himself from giving in to Tony's misery and didn't hear.

In Afghanistan Tony had never considered giving in to his kidnappers, the torture they'd subjected him to had only made him more determined to resist, to see them dead. But the Ten Rings had never had a target like Thanos to point his weapons at. They'd never thought of leaving him completely alone. They'd never made him like them.

 **Note:** Well, this chapter took longer to write, is longer than normal and still didn't close out the plotline that I was trying to resolve.

When I started this chapter I didn't think the biggest stumbling block would turn out to be deciding if I think of Loki as gay or not. My lean in fiction is everyone is bi or more accurately all it takes is a sufficiently skilled writer to make any pairing work. But because Loki was just looking for sex not a relationship in a society with strongly defined gender roles his choice to go out as male or female does end up saying something about his preferences.

 **Summary of the limits on Tony's anti-magic tech:** He can cause spells cast directly at him or within a few feet of him to destabilize explosively. So if someone tries to use a spell to pick him up and throw him he can counter it. If the person uses the same spell to pick up a car and throw it at him he'd better dodge. The more power in the spell the bigger the explosion. Tony has done some work to try to make the caster take the brunt of the explosion but he still catches some of the force.


	9. Self-Loathing

**Lima to Stockholm**

 **Chapter Nine: Self-Loathing**

Long after Odin left Loki's form settled into Loptr and he fell asleep huddled up on the floor outside Tony's door. He was violently awoken when an explosion shattered the door, filling the air with a spray of wooden shrapnel. "Tony!" Loki exclaimed. Even as he shifted back to his normal form, he was using his magic to draw the heat from the flames and force the smoke up to the ceiling. Then he plunged into the destruction.

Tony lay sprawled across his workbench, thrown halfway across his room by the force of the explosion. Loki's heart faltered as he saw the blood slowly dripping off the edge of the table, it had cut into Tony's side and there was deep gash on his cheek from where a splitter from the door had struck him. Tony had engaged one of his gauntlets, apparently in a last ditch effort to protect himself. The heavy smell of alcohol hanging around the engineer provided an explanation for why he hadn't fully armored himself before trying to blast his way to freedom. Loki glanced toward the wall leading to the garden guiltily, 'Or at least to the freedom I'd allowed him before.'

Carefully, gently Loki picked Tony up and carried him to Frigga's room. Loki couldn't remove the activated gauntlet and on a moment's thought decided it would be better to work around it and it's dormant twin anyway as he cleaned the blood and soot from Tony's skin. He used his magic to make certain that Tony hadn't suffered any internal damage from being thrown into the table before teasing the splitter of wood out of the wound on his face and taping it closed.

Tony briefly regained consciousness as Loki used a rag to repeatedly rinse the small burns he'd suffered in cold water. "I did it. Don't leave," he muttered blearily, tangling his fingers in the hem of Loki's shirt before passing out again.

Loki stared at Tony's hand, feeling more guilty about something he'd done than he had in centuries. He didn't notice his female clone slip up behind him until she shoved her hand into the base of his neck. In a second the two were merged.

The woman who remained shared Loki's coloring, pitch black hair and pallid skin. Like him she was tall and wiry but her brows and nose were a shade more delicate and her mouth smaller. "You created me to care for him and to form a bond with him. Now you will get out of my way while I do it," she said to herself.

Tony woke to the feel of fingers carding through his hair. He turned his head slightly and blinked up at the woman, "You're back. He, Loki? Odin? He knows I designed them?"

"He knows," Lady Loki confirmed. "He saw the plans. You'll need new equipment to build them. It's just well you.. remodeled your room. He's repairing the damage."

"He won't lock me in again?"

Loki had been trying to dig his way out of the depths of his mind where his renegade clone had confined him but when confronted with evidence of the harm he'd done he pulled back and his clone reinforced his bindings with memories of his torture on Thanos' orders and the childish act of vengeance that had led his mother's death to her. Loki laughed bitterly to himself as he remembered Frigga's words, _"Alway so perceptive, about everyone but yourself."_ Apparently his clone had gained enough distance to turn his wickedly sharp observations against himself. Outside of his mind Loki's clone kept threading her fingers slowly through Tony's hair.

"He doesn't have to repair the door," Tony suggested. "I broke it after all, he shouldn't bother himself."

Loki paused for a moment. "You need a forge," she said eventually. "It would probably be better if your room were expanded to include the veranda, for better ventilation. We could remove the front wall entirely and add some partitions around your sleeping area for privacy."

Tony hesitated as a flush crept up his neck. "That sounds, um, practical. To deal with fumes from the forge," he stammered.

Lady Loki nodded. "Very practical," she agreed, collecting up the rest of the conversation and shoving the memory of it after Loki into the depths of her mind to keep him company.

"I don't know why you don't think I like you," Lady Loki said after a bit, her fingers drifted from Tony's hair to tracing skin along the edge of face. "I want you, truly."

Tony took a deep breath, "You'll stay?" he asked.

"Always," Loki promised and Tony reached out, touching two fingers to the back of her hand. He slowly followed the line of her arm up until his fingers were tangled in the hair at the back of her neck. Then he leaned up to kiss her, a soft press of lips that gradually changed to open mouthed kisses as Tony eased Loki back on the bed. Loki surrendered readily, letting her head fall back and gasping happily as Tony mouthed at the column of her neck.

When Loki started unbuttoning his shirt Tony shivered. He closed his eyes and tried to block out the feeling of someone's hand near the site where the Arc Reactor had been.

* * *

Somewhat later Tony sat, knees pulled up to his chest, one hand wrapped around Loki's wrist while conversely keeping himself as far away from her as possible without letting go. "'It's not you, it's me' is probably as trite here as it is on Earth," he said with a self-deprecating chuckle. "But don't go. Ten years ago the shape-shifter thing would have been hot beyond belief but somewhere between waterboarding and as good as having my heart ripped out… It only takes one hand to count the people who can touch me without my brain filling with all the ways it could end in bloodshed. It's a turn off."

"Shape- You knew?" Loki asked. The shock of it tore the moorings on the restraints his clone had placed on his full persona.

"That you change your name as often as you change your hair color? Yeah," Tony said.

"How?" Curiosity drew Loki closer to the surface. In hundreds of years neither Thor nor his friends had ever caught on to his disguises.

Tony glanced over at Lady Loki, the ghost of a wry smile crossing his lips, "You're the template right?" he said then held his breath, waiting for a bad reaction.

Loki nodded slowly. "Basically," it was how he would have looked as a female, "but how could you know that?"

"Details aside, all your looks were exactly the same, conforming to the same standard of beauty," Tony pointed out. "Except there's personality left in this look. It's the pre-airbrushed version right?"

When Loki didn't say anything Tony immediately started rambling to fill the silence. "You'd think Pepper would appreciate that I can't cheat on her but she hates it. I'm ninety percent sure she was doing the 'If you love something set it free' thing with our first break but I didn't go anywhere so I couldn't come back.

"She had a front row seat on my dating habits for over a decade, I can't convince her that I'm done with the part of my life where I liked sex way more than I liked my partners. Because there are issues but I don't care enough to try to fix them. Sex with someone I actually loved and trusted was a fucking revolution. Only she doesn't believe it. I thought about Rhodey just to prove it was her, not that I couldn't be with anyone else but that'd be too weird given the amount of time Rhodey spent protecting my nonexistent but underaged virtue in college. The only time I seriously flirted with him I was sixteen, he was twenty-one and that went over like a lead balloon. He treated me like I was his best friend's kid sister with a crush." Tony's nose wrinkled at the memory, "All nice and worried about my feelings. It was mortifying. I was a teenage boy, I just wanted to get laid. There was a point when I was thinking about the Avengers-"

"But you were both male," Loki broke in, the notion of it set both his clone and himself reeling, ultimately leaving Loki to deal with utterly unexpected information.

"And right there is why I backed off on Thor when he was oblivious to light flirting," Tony replied, still in full-ramble. "Everything I knew about your culture was literally myths and not encouraging ones plus Thor could take off my head in a second if he reacted badly. Same with Captain 1940's Americana and even if he was open to guys I can still picture his patented disapproving expression if I tried explaining that I wanted friends with benefits to cheat on Pepper so I could prove that I was happy not cheating on Pepper. Natashalie could have followed the logic but she uses sex as a weapon, even when I trusted her I didn't trust her THAT much. I figured out Clint wasn't available long before he told us he was taken. Bruce would be great except he's too hung up on the other guy to even talk about how to work around the technical issues, which yeah, a massive increase in size mid-coitus has a lot of potential to be a problem, never mind the mental aspects."

"You would not have minded if I approached you in this form?" Loki asked with disbelief. He dropped every mask on his appearance.

"Karma's a bitch," Tony muttered, relaxing enough to stop shielding his chest with his knees. "Can't exactly say I was expecting that but I'm way less surprised than I should be. Hate when I figure things out and decide not to tell myself."

Loki stared down at Tony's hand, still locked around his wrist despite the blue hue of his skin giving away his true nature. "I would rather be having sex than thinking up ways to pay you back for your sophomoric sense of humor," he complained as that was the simplest thought out of the whirlpool in his mind to deal with. 'How is his hand not freezing? Have I never even touched another person with this skin before?'

"I might lean a bit toward women in taste and a lot in practice because nine times out of ten dealing with the fallout was more bother than the night was worth when I was sleeping around. Still the guy thing ranks so far below the defenestration thing it's under the sea. And the blue skin? Yeah that works for you, way more what I hoped for from meeting an alien than Thor. Of course my first crush was the Orion Girl, original Star Trek of course."

"But I'm a monster," Loki said actively struggling against the impulse to transform into Loptr. Being Loptr and the hope that Tony would just hug him the way he had when he found out about Frigga's death was amazingly tempting but the risk involved in giving away that lie was too much.

Tony stopped. For several seconds he just stared at Loki. "This is not the Stockholm Syndrome talking, although after the last three months, I was banking on it getting me past my trust issues." Unconsciously his hold on Loki's wrist tighten as if to keep him there. "Beyond aesthetic appreciation I don't give a damn about your skin color. I don't have the cultural background to have any sort of emotional reaction to Asgard versus Jotunheim versus Nidavellir… Well I might favor Nidavellir a bit since you told me they had the good sense to adapt their machines to manipulate magic rather than their genes. And even if I did have the background to feel it, I doubt I'd agree."

"How can you say that?" Loki demanded still entranced by the sight of someone willingly touching his Jotun skin.

"Because your people aren't the only ones with prejudices. I've dismissed the ones in my culture as utterly moronic nonsense, why wouldn't I feel the same about yours?" Tony shrugged, "It's easier when you're the second generation to come to that realization. The first time Rhodey met my dad was when Howard had to pick us up from a drunk tank. I thought Rhodey was going to give himself a coronary worrying about how an old, rich, white guy would react to his kid getting arrested while out drinking with a black guy but the first thing my dad noticed about Rhodey was the air force academy ring he wore so he asks, 'How did my no good son talk a nice kid like you into this mess?'

"We had to spend the rest of that Spring Break at my parents'. Actually one of my better home visits, watching Rhodey wander around looking lost. He is damned good at making people take him on his own terms but he just didn't know what to do when he suddenly didn't have anything to prove to anyone. The only times Howard showed up for something of mine was when the media would remark on his absence, and he always made sure I knew I was wasting his time. I grew up watching anti-war protesters on the sidewalk outside of my house almost every weekend and they just made Howard more determined to stick to his path. I showed off my toys, my money but that week when Rhodey stayed with us was one of the very few times when I got to show off my family."

Tony pulled Loki's hand up in front of his eyes, "This is the last reason you should think of yourself as a monster. Fuck, you don't even know if a guy having magic is unusual for your species," he remembered. "Even if there is something horrific about their culture it's not like you'd be influenced by it. Do you know anything about Jotunheim that isn't demonization attached to your people fighting a war against them?"

"I don't know." Hesitantly Loki reached across the gap between them and covered Tony's hand with his own, tense with anticipation of rejection. Tony leaned back against the headboard of the bed and tried to get comfortable. They stayed there, hands touching, bodies two arms' length apart.

* * *

With the help of Loki's magic Tony's workshop was quickly remodeled to make room for a forge at the same time turning the room into an alcove off the garden with no doors to be locked. The remodeling happened quickly so Tony was stunned when his burns healed and the deep cut on his face faded to an insignificant scar before the work on the room was done.

As Tony settled into fabricating the designs from his three months of solitary confinement an odd thing happened, after a few days of working in a room exposed to the diurnal cycle, Tony found himself getting tired with the waning light as the sun set and waking in the morning as the sun rose. Unconsciously, following Howard's example, Tony had designed every one of his labs to use many of the same psychological tricks that casinos used to encourage their patrons to lose track of time. For all that everyone from Pepper to the Avengers had tried discourage Tony's multi-day engineering binges not one of them had ever thought to suggest that he to add windows or have the lighting in his lab adjust itself to keep his sense of time intact.

" _Maybe your people were onto something with all this pseudo-medieval crap," Tony allowed as he dug into his midday meal with more appetite than he'd felt since he'd been a teenager still undergoing growth spurts. Loki smirked, pleased with himself even if he wasn't entirely sure how he'd managed the feat of getting Tony Stark to eat and sleep properly._

Without any discussion of why it might be desirable, Loki removed the doors from Frigga's room and the library when he opened Tony's workshop to the garden. If Tony realized that Loki was using spells to keep the weather away from their rooms he never mentioned it the possibility that they could be used to keep more than the weather locked out, or in. Even if the new openness of rooms was an illusion it still helped to settle Tony's fear of isolation. Furthering that assurance, Loki continued the deception that he, Odin and Loptr were separate people. With Odin in and out of the rooms and Loptr and Loki in constant residence regardless of whether one, the other or both were the clone, Tony only had to glance up or listen to assure himself that he wasn't back in solitary confinement. Loki rarely left as he was using up most of his control to keep from switching between Loki and Loptr in front of Tony.

A part of Loki wondered if he was lying to himself as much as to Tony as he watching Loptr hand Tony tools while he read over the latest set of revisions proposed by Jotunheim's envoy on his proposed military alliance against Thanos. The mere idea of reabsorbing the Odin-clone turned his stomach, the clone had been rogue for so long that Loki suspected that it truly wasn't him anymore. He wasn't even sure that it was what he'd tasked it with being. Ever since the night he'd lost control of his shape-shifting the Odin-clone watched him with a worried eye that Loki couldn't picture the true Odin turning on him, Thor perhaps but not him. Loki couldn't imagine where his mimicry of Odin had ever conceived of the notion that he needed or deserved concern. Loki had to restrain himself from spending too much time in his child-form to avoid Loptr deciding that he wasn't getting his fair share of Tony's attention. The clone had the judgement of the young boy he appeared to be and Loki couldn't risk that he'd consider the consequences if he recreated himself in front of Tony. Still there were times when Loki decided the risk was worth it to have the casual affection Tony offered the child for himself. Loki's female clone wasn't prone to materializing herself as a separate entity, she attacked Loki from within, trying to usurp control whenever she felt he wasn't sufficiently attentive to Tony's needs. 'At least she's what I meant her to be,' Loki thought with mild exasperation as he remembered:

" _You tell me you won't give me alcohol because you don't like putting up with drunken idiocy and the day after you see my still it starts producing green goo that would probably be useful for creating mutant turtles if you had a sewer for me to dump it in," Tony accused. "Of course you did it."_

 _Loki tried to blink, tried to remember how the conversation had started but it was like being trapped in a waking dream. His hand- No. Her slim, blue hand waved waved off Tony's complaints airily. "Is it so odd that I prefer you with your wits intact?"_

" _Flattery will get you nowhere Princess Neytiri," Tony huffed. He gestured to the still's output, "This is a travesty."_

" _I don't have a clue as to what you're referring to, but I'll take 'princess' as the respect due me," Loki heard herself reply haughtily._

" _She's a fictional sexy, blue alien," Tony admitted with a shrug. "Just because I'm not sleeping with you doesn't mean I can't appreciating the view. The movie had breakthrough special effects, nothing on your illusions though. I get how the magic field can be manipulated to give them solidity and texture but do you control them remotely or give them a program to run off of?"_

 _The technical question restored Loki's control. "I'm not certain that I do," he said irritably. "Control them."_

" _What does that mean?" Tony asked._

" _That I honestly don't know if I ruined your nasty contraption or not," Loki said. With a bit of concentration he restored his normal appearance. "Until just a moment ago you were speaking with my female clone."_

" _Is that… healthy?" Tony asked with a frown._

 _Loki shrugged. "Doubtful but I'm not sure how to get rid of her now. Don't worry she likes you and if she did destroy that thing, I don't disapprove of her actions. I would not be surprised to find the brew was toxic to start with."_

" _All alcohol is toxic, that's why evolution gave us a liver. If you're not careful you're going to start giving Pepper and Rhodey competition in the mother hen department," Tony groused._

" _Then I will be in good company."_

" _Yeah," Tony agreed with a sigh. He reached up and rubbed the rapidly healing scar on his cheek. "I miss them."_

Tony complained about the destruction of his alcohol supply for a few days, mostly when he suspected that he was talking to Loki's clone rather than the origin. Then he forgot about it as he became absorbed in forging the metal, the spell, that would restrict the use of the new weapons he'd designed to the individuals and purpose Tony had chosen. Blacksmithing was a physically demanding, time-consuming process and working the spell into the metal took a deft touch, a level of physical and mental concentration that even Tony found challenging to maintain for more than a few hours a day.

When Tony needed a break from forging he had the Tesseract and his experiments to determine why the Arc Reactor had neutralized the Mind Stone to occupy him. Where forging the spells required precision and concentration, exploring means of expanding the field produced by the Arc Reactor took creativity and inventiveness. Ironically, Tony quickly realized that if he hadn't removed the shrapnel in his chest and, consequently, the arc reactor he wouldn't have been vulnerable to Wanda's manipulation. The Starkinium core, once activated to produce power, also created a field effect that rendered the Mind Stone, Tesseract and presumably the other Infinity Stones inert when they were brought into close proximity.

To Tony's immense disappointment there was no way to separate the Arc Reactor's field generation properties from the properties that made it so desireable for weaponization. In the back of his mind he shelved his worries about the possibility that he'd eventually have to choose between leaving the Earth vulnerable to Thanos or making the Arc Reactor weapons Obadiah Stane had envisioned the moment he discovered how Tony had come out of Afghanistan alive but the work was challenging and, at least for now, he was building things to protect the people he loved.

* * *

 _Nettie climbed up onto the table where Tony was working. He tried to set aside his work, tried to apply the rules he'd discovered for dealing with overly intelligent kids: First, try to remember what he would have wanted from an adult at that age. Second, think about what Howard would have done and try something different. Tony would have wanted attention and Howard wouldn't have given it to him. Tony wanted nothing more than to put aside the designs he was working on and look at his and Pepper's daughter but he couldn't drag his eyes away from the holograms projected above his work table._

" _I don't like preschool," Nettie complained. "It's no fun. Greg's a tattletale. I wasn't gonna hurt the robot." The little girl sounded outraged at the thought that anyone would think she'd hurt a robot. "It says the same things over and over. It's broke! I wanted to help."_

 _Tony wanted to explain that it was probably a toy with a couple recorded messages, not an AI like FRIDAY and the bots. He wanted let her know that her desire to fix things made him proud. He wanted to teach her how to make the toy better, maybe program it to follow this Greg around and tattle on everything that he did. It was probably petty and inappropriate but if Nettie had a vengeful streak she came by it honestly and he wasn't just thinking about himself. But he couldn't._

" _It's okay Daddy, don't be sad. Mommy said you're a memory and can't talk to me."_

Tony was jerked awake so suddenly he all but fell out of bed.

* * *

Tony stared at the readout from the medical scanner he'd rebuilt from the components pile Loptr's offerings ended up in. He'd been trusting, accepting Odin at his word when it came to the whole Valhalla/death and reincarnation thing. He'd assumed the lack of scars, lack of complaints from a body worn by four plus decades of abusing his health was because he'd woken in some sort of simulacrum. 'And what an odd way that was to realize that I actually do believe in souls, not just genetics and the culmination of stored experience.'

But Pepper had told their dream-daughter he was dead and the medical scanner showed an outlandishly healthy body but one that still had a missing appendix and more tellingly still had the implants he'd given himself to control the armor remotely. 'Add Thor's dad to the people who can't be trusted,' Tony thought to himself. 'Not that I'm surprised given Loki.'

Even weeks after Loki's revelation Tony still wasn't sure what Loki had more trouble accepting: the idea that there was nothing wrong with his sexuality or his species. Despite knowing the flirting wasn't going anywhere Loki seemed more than happy to continue trying in his male form or her blue form but never both at once.

'He's over a thousand years old, I shouldn't see him as a poor fucked up kid, but the more I get to know him the more I see that damage he's suffered instead of the damage he's done. No one should be that grateful to NOT have people be repelled by him being himself, he doesn't even care that I can't say yes.'

 **Note:** In "Agent Carter" S2, period racism is explicitly an issue. Jason and Whitney Frost both bring it up, the random guy at the store reacts badly to the implications that Jason and Peggy are an interracial couple. And Howard doesn't blink at working with Jason as an equal. I think it's safe to say that whatever Howard's faults, racism is not one of them.


	10. Deceit

**Lima to Stockholm**

 **Chapter Ten: Deceit**

While Tony forged the critical components for his newly designed armors and other gear the Odin-Clone took the schematics for the components Tony was willing to commit to paper and commissioned the dwarves of Nidavellir to build them. Before long new versions of Iron Man, built with Harley in mind rather than Tony, War Machine, Pepper's very discrete defensive armor and a new armor that Tony dubbed the Silver Centurion for Happy were being assembled on the veranda along with the weapons for Spider-Man, as well as improved body armor for the boy. He remade Thor's armor, so it combined the best of both Asgard and Tony's own ingenuity. Even Tony couldn't think of anything to build for Vision, most of his work had been in stopping the Infinity Stones and Vision controlled one.

Building things to protect his friends and loved ones had always been a near therapeutic activity for Tony. Feeling a measure of reluctance to move on to armaments for those he was less happy to protect Tony let himself believe that his dreams were real and overhauled Rhodes and FRIDAY's Iron Buggy design. Then he created a distinctly feminine looking robot, had it been the armor it looked to be it would have fit FRIDAY's preferred holographic form neatly. He built strictly defensive gear for Marlena, Mercedes and May Parker, then made a few more units for Cassie and her family just in case the friendships he saw developing in his dreams were real… Besides, upstaging Hank Pym was always fun.

"How do we get this stuff to them?" Tony asked Loki when he was done. "You said as Ragnok approached the rules would change and I could see them, when is that? Thanos is moving, they're going to need time to train with the new gear and I'm going to need feedback so I can straighten out any bugs."

"Thor is back from scouting Thanos' advance, he could take them," Loki said quickly. "Your friends trust him, Odin can explain things to Thor and he can pass it on them so they have the time they need to train before Thanos arrives."

"Why do I feel like you're not ready to let me go yet?" Tony asked and Loki looked away.

Tony moved to stand up from his workbench. Loki dropped to his knees beside him, holding Tony in place. "You can do so much more to shift the balance in our favor here," he said quickly.

"Pepper-"

"Is right," Loki interrupted. "Let your bullheaded captain and his brainless ilk throw themselves bodily in Thanos' path. They'll accomplish more with you arming them than with you beside them. You are more than a foot soldier, Anthony Stark. For all that you've been disparaged for your talents what good would your heroic soldiers be without the backing of those like you?

"And your return would distract them," Loki continued, speaking in a rush. "You died in Siberia, at Steve Rogers' hands, that has been proved and displayed to the world. They cut your body open to expose all the damage he did to you. They will not easily accept that you have been brought back…" Loki laid his cheek against the outside of Tony's thigh, "Especially not with me involved. They will call it a trick and you will have to fight tooth and nail to convince them that you are who you say you are. Later, once the battle has been joined, when impossible things become daily fare, they will be ready to accept miracles. Then they won't question that the gates of Valhalla have opened and the legendary dead have returned in Midgard's darkest hour to stand in her defense one last time."

Loki's form shimmered, telling Tony he was on the verge of losing control of shape-shifting again. Tony rested his hand on Loki's head, uncomfortable with the thought of Loki changing himself into something more acceptable. Tony had heard about how Odin had found Loki as an infant, left to die of exposure, how Loki had transformed himself into a Asir babe and been take in. The virtues of being yourself didn't resonant with someone whose very survival from infancy on had lain in conforming to those around him. Frigga and Odin had given Loki some support in being himself when Frigga had taught him magic and Odin hadn't forbid its use but, from what Tony had heard, they'd left Loki exposed to not insignificant amounts of abuse for choosing not to force himself even further into the Asgardian mold.

"If you go back you'll have to work with them, with the captain again," Loki continued. "You can barely stand to think about him. They'll do what they've always done and demand that you shoulder all the blame, they'll turn to you to fix every consequence of their actions and say it is better than you deserve. Stay with me awhile longer.

"Thor can take care of the preliminary explanations. After how he left me, he owes me this. Let him break the path and deal with the initial reactions when he brings news of your fate. Let him be the one to convince them of where you've been. Don't go yet, it will only hurt and in the end you won't be able to stay. After the war against Thanos is done, win or lose, you and I will return the Realms of the Dead."

And in the end it was that which convinced Tony to proceed cautiously. As much as he might want to see Pepper again, to verify that their daughter was real, returning for a brief moment wouldn't be doing anyone any favors. From what Odin had told him, from what Tony had seen in his dreams, even if they missed him and held a place open for him in their hearts, they'd moved on and done alright without him. Which didn't surprise Tony in the least, one of his basic requirements for friendship was people who wanted him around without needing him because in Tony's experience needing him really meant needing something he could provide them.

Tony had had a bad feeling as he'd started work on the Accords and he'd cleaned up his affairs before going in. He regretted not finding a solution for Rhodey's paralysis before he'd died but Peter and Harley were on the verge of completing their work and Tony wouldn't steal their thunder. He regretted meeting Peter so late and leaving the young hero's future so uncertain but Rhodey and Pepper had stepped in and probably done a better job of it. Tony couldn't see himself forcing the issue of telling May Parker and- and the truth was she deserved better than being shut out of a large part of her child's life, while Peter deserved to have a parent's support in his chosen path.

'If I can't go back for real, for a lifetime,' Tony decided. 'Then it's best not to go back at all. Best to work from a distance to make sure the war against Thanos was won.'

* * *

It was harder for Tony to lose himself in his work as he started realizing the designs he'd made for the heroes he'd investigated but hadn't met and even more so for the rogue Avengers. The protection against magic and the Infinity Stones that he made for Pym's rebellious flunky was completely generic, one of dozens he'd made for anyone willing to fight against Thanos, only different in size from the designs he'd provided for the Earth's militaries to secure their planes and tanks against those attacks. He didn't know the shrinking/growing guy's tech and couldn't do much for it without having ever looked under the hood. The Falcon's wings weren't too hard to look at, Tony had never been particularly close to Sam and the man had asked after Rhodey when they spoke on the Raft and he'd offered Tony a sliver of trust there, more than any other member of Team!Cap had given him with less reason. Natasha's widow-bites were Peter's too now but, while she and Peter also shared many of the same requirements for body armor that didn't restrict their agility and speed, there was no way for Tony to pretend that Natasha's body armor was meant for a teenaged boy. Tony started other, completely unrelated projects to switch to when he couldn't stand to look at the arrows he'd designed, let alone Steve Roger's body armor- Tony felt a little petty for stripping it of Captain America's colors but at the same time he literally got nauseous bring the old suit to mind, the one he'd last seen as Steve rammed his shield into Tony's chest and left him to die. Sometimes Tony thought about creating a new arm for Barnes just to avoid working armor that would protect Rogers from magic and the Infinity Stones.

When Tony absolutely couldn't stand to work on the renegades' gear any longer he worked with Loptr to adapt the Arc Reactor's ability to disrupt the Infinity Stones into something that didn't disrupt a magic-users own spells and crafted it into a gorget for Loki and a pauldron for Loptr. In the back of his mind it bothered Tony that the tech used in the armor would only need a few tweak before it could be employed to create weapons specifically to work with a Mage's innate powers and Tony knew Loki was smart enough to make the connections without help.

"Here," Tony said presenting the gorget set with a glowing Arc Reactor, the delicate circuitry integrated into the body of the neck guard shaping the reactor's energy field so that would blended with Loki's magic. "It should protect you from anything, upto and including Infinity Stones, trying to screw with your mind."

Tony wondered if he should point out that the circuitry design for the gorget and the pauldron were nearly identical, Loki and Loptr's magics were very nearly identical according to Tony's scans, much too close to be coincidence. It only confirmed what anyone with eyes could see looking at Loki and Loptr standing side by side but from Loki's behavior around the kid Tony figured he hadn't noticed and Loptr certainly didn't know. Tony was still a bit shaky on his grasp of Asgardian age versus developmental stage, still he figured Loki had to have been on the young side when he'd father Loptr, which could explain his blind spot about the kid.

"Thank you," Loki said, she was in her blue female form for the moment. She swept her hair aside and turned her back to Tony, inviting him to put the gorget on for her. Several inappropriate comments about collars flashed through Tony's mind and were discarded just as quickly when he noticed Loki was holding her breath, still anticipating rejection. The neck guard was a solid piece, too heavy to put on gracefully but Tony managed. After fastening the clasp Tony let his hands rest on Loki's cool shoulders for a few moments, as a reminder that Tony wasn't even slightly repulsed by Loki's Jotun skin, even if her/his attempts at flirting weren't going anywhere.

Tony remembered putting the necklace he'd made from the shards removed from his heart on Pepper, the implicit promise, the lie that he'd give up Iron Man when he blew up the armor. "So how's it feel, Elsa? Doesn't pinch, magically or physically?" he asked before Loki could notice his distraction. "Try out a few spells, let's make sure it works like it's supposed to before you need to count on it." He gave her shoulders a last squeeze then stepped back. "Bibbity bobbity away."

* * *

Tony stood in the middle of his workshop, the things he'd built for Earth's defense arrayed around him and watched Thor come in. "Let's get straight to it," he said before Thor could say anything. "You think the Accords were a shitty idea and I'm a terrible person for signing them, no surprise I think the whole team concluded that about five seconds after Ultron started talking. Fine, but if Earth is going to defend itself against Thanos you need me. So," he gestured to a row of boxes on the table before him, each one inscribed with one of the Avengers' codenames. "The keys, if you will. I coded everything I built to a specific person but without them here there's a last step before anything works. The person the gear's intended for needs to touch what's in their box, then install it in the gear. I'll show you where everything goes."

"I do not think you are a bad person," Thor interjected when Tony had to pause for breath. "I do not disagree with the intent of the Sokovia Accords, what I have seen on Earth gives proof that they could be amended into a positive force." Thor knelt gracefully, "And I am long overdue in offering you an apology. I am sincerely sorry for attacking you after our first encounter with Ultron."

Tony's mouth opened. He blinked. "Say that again? You don't think everything about the Accords is an offense to your dignity? That there's not something innately wrong with people wanting the right to second guess you?"

"I do not," Thor stated. "I, not so long ago, questioned the All-Father's judgement, I felt he had been unbalanced by my mother's loss. I do not disagree that anyone's judgement can be faulty and there should exist an instrument for assessing the actions of even the most venerated among us."

"Oh," Tony said softly. "Um- Well- I just thought- Rogers was able to shift your hammer. I haven't been able to study it, but after looking at Gungnir… Well, first there probably _is_ something in there that says 'Not Asir? Not happening.' Only I'm not sure how far the Super Soldier Serum's effect on his genetic is from the cumulative effect of your people's genetic enhancement program. And while I'm not sure I'd agree with Mjolnir's definition of worthy, Steve Rogers' intentions are apparently a pretty close match to your. He loathed the whole idea of the Accords so I just figured…"

"I believe your people have a saying about good intentions?" Thor asked.

A small smile quirked Tony's lips.

"However, _my_ intentions were not good when my father laid that requirement on Mjolnir," Thor said solemnly. "I was a vainglorious child chasing battle with no thought for anyone but myself. Mjolnir returned to me when I learned to fight for someone other than myself. That is not a lesson Steve Rogers needs to learn but perhaps he could learn to examine more closely the end results of his good intentions."

"Now," Thor said after a moment of silence, "That we have clarified that I do not hate you, could you explain what you have built?"

"Oh, right," Tony said. "Okay, so like I said, if the wrong person gets their hands on the key first odds are everything locks down until I reset the password but maybe not. Right now the lock is my impression of the person the gear's designed for, until they actually touch the key it's not a sure thing. That also brings up another point, if I'm too far off-base about who someone is the key'll go into lockdown then too.

"Now, here's where Rhodey's key goes…"

* * *

Once he was in Odin's study, Loki shifted from Thor's appearance into Odin's, then he sat down and quickly transcribed all the instructions Tony had given him. Expecting Thor to remember and accurately pass on that level of precisely detail, technical information was just asking for trouble in Loki's opinion. Once he'd written up the instructions for each set of equipment he called several members of the guard to take the boxed up equipment to the throne room and summoned Thor.

Loki-as-Odin, took the inscribed boxes containing the keys to the throne room himself. He called for a low table covered in velvet to array them on, then stood before Hlidskjalf and waited for Thor.

"Father, you summoned me?" Thor asked once he'd made the prescribed bow.

"My son," Loki said gravely, "You are aware that I have been in talks with Niflheim?"

Thor nodded, "I know they have been going as well as might be expected, even now when there is proof that the Mad Titan's return is imminent."

"Those talks have not been completely fruitless," Loki stated. "Niflheim has given leave for one of their armorsmiths who bares Midgard an allegiance to work his craft in support of the coming war."

Thor paled dramatically. "The rumors about Niflheim?" he breathed.

Loki ignored the question. "The armorsmith has entrusted his creations only to specific individuals. These keys must not leave your hands until they have been imprinted upon by the one they were intended for. I cannot impress upon you enough how gravely disappointed I will be should you fail me in this mission."

"Father, I will not fail," Thor stated firmly.

Loki nodded, "Even so, we will take precautions. The equipment will remain in Asgard while you carry the keys to their intended recipients. Once the keys have been successfully imprinted by their proper master then the equipment will be sent so that they might claim it. And Thor? Should any of the keys reject the person they were made for? It means they were not who the armorsmith believed them to be. If that happens return the key to Asgard promptly. The gift is not rightfully theirs if they deceived him about their true nature."

* * *

Tony watched the scar on his face, where a piece of shrapnel from the door had laid his cheek open to the bone, fade to nothing in a matter of months. He picked through the equipment he'd accumulated, a good selection of which was medical in nature, and put together a DNA sequencer. Having already established that his body was in fact the same one he'd been born with, Tony wasn't particularly surprised to find the modifications from the stabilized version of Extremis that he'd injected himself with in order to survive removing the shrapnel in his chest and the Arc Reactor.

After Tony, Bruce and Dr. Cho had determined how to stabilize Extremis and given the cure to Pepper, Tony had told her it was gone. He'd figured that it wasn't really a lie: The possibility of her blowing up was gone, probability so low that he had to use scientific notation to fit all the zeroes after the decimal point into a single computer screen. The glowing hot skin and super strength were gone and there was a 95% probability that they'd stay gone. What was left was a very, very modest version of the super soldier serum that meant Pepper found herself needing a much more rigorous exercise routine to manage stress than she'd used before. If she put two and two together, which Tony didn't doubt that she had, Pepper probably knew from the timing of her sudden increase in fitness that there were some lingering effects from Extremis but she hadn't said anything so Tony took that as proof that he'd made the right call in just saying Extremis was gone. It was easier to pretend everything was normal when well meaning idiots didn't insist on telling you things you didn't want to know… "Fuck," Tony swore to himself, as he recognized the same chain of logic that had led Steve to not tell him about his parents.

"Do I have to forgive him now?" Tony wondered. In Siberia the only thing Tony had been able to think of when he realized that Steve had hidden his parents' murder from him was that Steve had only cared about protecting Bucky but now- Tony sighed. He didn't keep things from Pepper because he didn't love her but because sometimes the news wasn't what he wanted it to be and he hated being the one to make her unhappy.

Still, if it had just been the secrecy- Tony remember Steve berating him viciously about keeping secrets when he must have already known about Tony's parents. -He could have convinced himself that his first thought had been wrong and Steve really did give a damn about him but the fight in Siberia had made it brutal clear where he rated. 'Not once did he show any sign that he that he cared,' Tony thought. 'Dad thought the world of him and not a goddamn flinch at watching his face being smashed in. Not a thought to how I might feel about about watching my parents be murdered. Nothing but how it might affect his precious Bucky.' Tony wished he had B.A.R.F. to dig out the memories and step back to just watch them replay without his bias obscuring what had happened but he just couldn't remember any point in that whole fucking mess where Steve had shown the slightest sign of compassion for what he was going through.

"Were we ever really friends?" Tony asked himself. "It wouldn't be the first time I fooled myself into believing that someone cared when really they were just tolerating me for what I could give them." He sighed, "Is it fair to hate Steve Rogers for not liking me as much as I liked him? No, either he didn't tell me because he cared enough to not want to be the bearer of bad news or he didn't tell me because he was using me all along and telling me the truth didn't have any advantage for him. I can't, I won't forgive him without evidence that I was more than a convenient source of funds to him."

Tony shook his head, "What does it matter anyway? I'll be gone after this war and it'll be plenty big enough to keep the two of us on separate fronts. There's no reason we need to make-up."

Tony hadn't expected to find that the Extremis modifications to his DNA had been further enhanced, or that he would recognize the new modifications from his and Loki's reading about the Vanir's early experiments in extending their lives and eradicating disease from their population. He still didn't know how he'd been brought back to life but if he were still dead, why had they needed to give him improved healing?

* * *

After the keys were delivered Thor returned to Asgard with news of how they'd been received.

"There is much lively debate over whether the Midgard should seek the assistance of Enhanced individuals who have been incarcerated, including those who were once our teammates," Thor relaid. "As that was the case I have held off on giving them your gifts until the debate is resolved."

"That's crap," Tony snapped. "It's the fucking fate of the planet. There's no way Steve Rogers could sit that out, has anyone actually read about the shit he pulled to get his ass into combat back in WWII? Do they want to deal with Thanos and trying to keep him from helping at the same time?"

"It is not just our former teammates," Thor said. "It is the entire planet at stake and as the decision has been made not to evacuate prisoners unless there are empty berths. If Midgard is lost the Nova Empire will destroy the planet rather than leave it in Thanos' hands. That being the case, do not all of those remaining on Midgard deserve the chance to die fighting for their lives rather than chained up like animals bound for slaughter? And if they are allowed to fight how can it be insured that they do not attempt treachery, or do more harm than good due to the natures that led to their imprisonment in the first place?"

"Is that why your father brought Loki back?" Tony asked. "Because dead or alive, Thanos is going to come after him and Loki deserves the chance to put up the best fight he can manage to see Thanos defeated?"

Thor nodded, "Svartalfheim showed me beyond all doubt that Loki can be trusted so long as his purposes align with ours," he said calmly. "Loki is no longer irrational in his anger and hurt."

Tony frowned as he stared at Thor but he continued picking through the boxes of keys that had been returned. "Why didn't this go to Natasha?" he asked. "She's not in the clink is she?"

"She was on a mission and beyond my reach," Thor replied. "The other keys were all accepted by, and accepted, those you sent them to."

Tony nodded absently, "No real surprise, most of the gear that went to people outside of my circle just had a general 'You will use this to fight in defense of the planet in the coming war, right?' on it. You made sure to explain that this stuff is only going to work against Thanos' forces didn't you? That everything turns into a pumpkin once he's out of the picture?"

"I have passed that message along faithfully," Thor said. "I would spend more time with you but now that the keys are delivered I must oversee the delivery of the equipment itself."

As Thor turned to leave Tony called out, "Loki!"

The blond Asir paused, "My younger brother, what of him?"

"Just no," Tony sighed. He gestured toward Thor and the various pieces of armor he had stored around the room spang to life attaching themselves to the startled Thunderer like leeches. As their power came on line, Thor's appearance wavered, shifting to Loki's but the startled mage was imprisoned by the armor before he could voice a protest. Tony watched Loki strain against the armor for a moment then said, "Well, it works as advertised. That's one thing you didn't lie about."

Loki stopped struggling. Tony watched a painfully familiar expression mask descended over Loki's features: Everything important was falling apart around him and he knew it was his fault, the only thing salvageable was his pride so he'd be damned if he lost that too. "What gave me away?" Loki asked.

Tony found himself remembering all the times he'd pulled that same trick, hoping someone would see through the bullshit and not let him from pull away. "First I got suspicious when 'Thor' didn't ask more questions while I was explaining the gear. Since I've known him he's never had too much pride to ask me to explain my tech in terms he understands. And you just confirmed that you weren't Thor when I asked about you. Thor gets this kicked puppy-dog look every time your name comes up," Tony sighed. "He really does love you but he doesn't get why you weren't overwhelmed with gratitude when he was willing to forgive your trespasses against him."

"And yet it didn't occur to him to seek MY forgiveness until I was dying in his arms!" Loki snarled.

"Nope," Tony agreed. "For curiosity's sake, have you been _everyone_ I've talked to in the last… two plus years?"

"In all honesty, yes," Loki replied.

Tony nodded at the confirmation. He made a second gesture and the armor unlocked, falling away from Loki.

"You're taking it rather better than I would have expected," Loki said as he cautiously rubbed circulation back into his limbs.

Tony shrugged, "It may just be the Stockholm Syndrome talking but the anti-magic and lock-out protocols on the armor worked as advertised, that means a lot to me. And even though you've had all the power, you've generally tried to persuade me with words rather than force. You've backed off when I couldn't give you what you wanted. You've listened to my reasons, my objections. You've gone out of your way to make me comfortable, you've made an effort to deal with my issues. When you hurt me, you apologized by restricting your ability to do it again. Basically I've always known that you're using me but that's not exactly new in my life and you've been kinder about it than most, the Avengers included… Even Odin? What does your old man say about you borrowing his face?"

"Unsurprisingly little given that he has been in Odinsleep since learning of my presumed death and I have been ruling in his place," Loki replied. "Preparing the Nine Realms for Thanos."

"How'd that happen?" Tony asked.

"After I was stabbed, as I lay dying in Thor's arms, he promised that he would tell our father I had died well." Loki shrugged trying to look like he didn't care, "When it became apparent that I would not die I found myself possessed by a desire to see how news of my death had been greeted."

"Okay Tom Sawyer, you just earned yourself a new nickname," Tony remarked. "Was it everything you'd hoped for? 'Cause I have heard Thor tell the story more than once."

"I don't know what I hoped for," Loki admitted. "To be frank, I expected my father to be unmoved. Then I would have disappeared with no regrets, leaving Thor behind to spread word of my death far and wide so none would think to pursue me in the lands of the living."

Tony waited silently.

"I disguised myself as a guard and went to my father to deliver the news of my death. When I told him, for a moment I believed I'd killed him. I had never meant to hurt him so badly, never dreamed that I could," Loki stammered.

"How long did it take you to decide to take his place?" Tony asked.

"About as long as it took me to move him to his bed after verifying that his heart yet beat," Loki said. "When he fell into Odinsleep after Thor's banishment mother gave me Gungnir, I was the rightful ruler Asgard, but no one would give me a chance. I thought, maybe, finally, I could prove them all wrong." He laughed, "And, of course, there's Thanos. I swear, on my mother's memory and my magic, that I have been honest about the fate that awaits both the universe and me personally if he should succeed."

Tony smiled awkwardly, "So you're motivated," he thought back on what he'd seen on the other side of the portal, "I can live with that. When it's over, when we've won. If you think it'll do any good, I'll tell anyone you want how much work you've put into saving, well, life, the universe and everything. Doesn't matter to me if you did it to save your own butt, you still did it."

"Thank you," Loki said quietly slumping over to lean against Tony's shoulder.

* * *

 **Notes:** I will go back to the reactions on Earth when Thor brings Tony's gifts, it's one of the early subplots in the next story, more than the segment I'd want to divert from Loki and Tony in this story. One more chapter to go before this story ends and my take on Infinity War starts.


	11. Last Secret

**Lima to Stockholm**

 **Notes:** Ahem… Apologizing for the cliffhanger ending in advance. Because I'm going to go back and spend at least 5-6 chapter on my take on IW before I resolve the cliffie. But this is where "Lima to Stockholm" was always intended to end and writing-wise it's easier for me to end this story before starting "Two Steps-Behind". So… If you're not a fan of cliffhangers you might want to wait until the timeline on Earth catches up.

 **Special Warning:** Things turn gory about three-quarters of the way through this chapter. If that's not your cup of tea, skip from where Loki enters the fight to the following story break.

 **Chapter Eleven: Last Secret**

After a while Tony stood up and started walking toward the door to Odin's study. "So," he said brightly. "I'm NOT going to drown if I step through this door, right?"

Loki stared at the floor and shook his head, becoming Loptr before Tony's eyes without the slightest change to his physical form.

Tony took a deep breath and opened the door. For a moment he stood just inside then, hesitantly, he stepped through. His hand, still holding to the door jam, tightened until his knuckles were white. For several minutes Tony stared at the new new room, the first new room he'd been in for years, just standing there, breathing.

Loki hovered slightly behind him, his gaze guiltily fixed to the floor at his feet.

Tony forced his fingers to open and took another step into the study. His mind was assaulted by a whirlwind of thoughts. 'We're going to need everyone. The Accords, gonna have to explain them not signing. _Steve should have been involved in drafting the Accords from the beginning, not me, well not that I was involved from the beginning beginning, but from when King T'Chaka managed to talk the UN into treating the Avengers like a sovereign nation in our own right. It should have been Steve, he would have done a much better job. I mean, me? Represent the Avengers on a matter of principle? Someone like me has no principles you all know that._

'We need everyone. I'm going to have to get him off. _It was all a misunderstanding. You see I was never really dead, Loki took me and left a clone in my place. Obviously Steve would never have hit me that hard, he's Captain America. He kept perfect control that whole time, didn't wrap a rope around my neck and try to hang me with it, didn't smash his shield into my head over and over until my helmet shattered, until my skull was cracked. He only hurt the suit, it's not like I've got a heart under all that metal anyway. You all know Tony Stark doesn't have a heart._ '

Tony felt his breathing speeding up. "Tony?" Loki's voice was tiny and worried. Not magic, just a good old fashion panic attack. Tony stumbled back into his workshop and shut the door behind him.

"You don't have to go anywhere. Please don't leave me, I'm all alone. You don't have to go," Loki whispered as he crouched beside Tony to make himself less threatening. "I'll take care of everything. All you have to do is stay here and build. I'll bring you everything you need. Thor really did take your inventions to Earth, he'll be back with their feedback shortly. I swear, I swear to you, that you can do more to help your Earth from here. Let me keep you just a little longer. You don't have to play the villain again, I won't let you, not when I'm so much better at it."

* * *

Tony did get the feedback about his invention not long after. Passed from Earth's heroes to Thor to Loki-as-Odin to Tony, but Tony had no doubt at all that it originated from Rhodey. There had always been people who said Rhodes only got his position as the liaison between Stark Industries and the military because he was Tony's friend, which was just added evidence that people were idiots in Tony's opinion. Rhodey knew how to ask the right questions, knew how to get from: "It sucks, I can't use this piece of crap." to "I have to press three buttons and access a drop down menu to do what I need to do. It takes nearly ten seconds and I never use any of the other options on the menu anyway." Tony knew from experience that when he had to interpret customer feedback without Rhodey as a buffer it generally got translated into "I need your tech to read my mind and do my job for me because I have the IQ of a brain-damaged goldfish." Tony knew the difference between Rhodey-filtered feedback and the raw stuff. So he got back to work improving his designs, assured that Loki was right and he could do more good working from Asgard rather than returning to Earth. Tony knew that Rhodey would recognize him from his work soon enough and that would be one less person he'd have to convince that he was him, that he was alive when he did go back.

Loptr held a torque wrench out and Tony hesitated. He knew now that the child was actually Loki, then he noticed the wrench, Loki- Loptr's hand was shaking. Tony reached out and took the wrench. He didn't like being handed things because taking them was an act of trust. Trust that the thing in question wasn't going to hurt him. Trust that they wouldn't use his outstretched hand to grab him, wouldn't attack him when his attention was diverted and one hand was occupied with whatever they'd given him. Trust that trying to hand him something wasn't just a cover to make getting close enough to him to attack him look natural.

But Loptr didn't count because he was just a kid. Tony was an adult and the whole 'hand me tools' thing was a way to make the kid feel useful and keep their attention while the adult demonstrated proper technique in using the tools and in mechanics. The art of using tools to fix things wasn't something you learned studying engineering in college. It was something best learned hands on, mentor-apprentice, parent-child. It was something he did with Harley and that he'd done with the bots, even if they, bless their little mechanical souls, were probably going behind his back and assigning numerical values to every last thing he tried to teach them to do by feel. If his dreams could be believed, his family had found a way to let him teach mechanics to his daughter even while he was dead. It was one of the few things Howard had gotten right and Tony was going to be damned if he ever let himself not do as well by a kid as Howard had done.

Loptr was really Loki, but- but- but- Tony sighed, in the years that he'd been in Asgard Loptr had never once been other than a child. Lopr might argue that humans were ridiculously over-protective and he could definitely hand sharp tools, he'd training to fight with a sword for decades before he'd even met Tony but at the end of the day, he'd respected the lab rules Tony insisted on for someone who looked ten, if Tony was inclined to be generous, even if he really was over a hundred and not a baby. In the end Loptr always conceded to Tony the authority that went along with being the adult in their relationship. In return Tony did his best to be a good mentor to the boy, to give him an adult's attention and encouragement to develop his abilities. To give him an adult whom he was important to.

From what Tony had put together Loki desperately wanted, needed acceptance. He needed a friend and co-conspirator, a lover, a parent and Loki could and had broken himself into pieces trying to get all of those things from Tony. Co-conspirator was a given, with the stakes being the Earth and possibly the future of all life in the galaxy what other answer could he give? Lover was almost as assuredly 'No', even if he wanted to try to get over his trust issues there was Pepper and the simple fact that he couldn't really picture being with someone who wasn't Pepper anymore. Friend? Friendship was hard, it was the people he called friends who betrayed him over and over again. Rhodey, Happy and Pepper were the only real exceptions and even they weren't perfect but he'd be a hypocrite if he expected perfection from his friends in light of his screw-ups. What made the three of them different was they accepted his mistakes and didn't try to force him to apologize for theirs. Tony didn't know if he had enough resilience left after the Avengers to risk friendship again. He wasn't sure he hadn't already done just that and hadn't noticed. Parental figure? Well, Harley's long gone deadbeat of a dad didn't exact set a high bar to clear. Still, excluding Ultron, none of the bots or other AI's had gone through a 'Hate you Dad' phase but then Tony wasn't sure that they had much higher standards than Harley; there weren't exactly a passel of other AI's out there for them to compare their creators against and there was Ultron. On the other hand, Odin wasn't exactly winning any parenting awards himself and who else was there? Now that he knew, Tony's halfway thought through notion of getting Loki to parent Loptr ran into fairly obvious logistical issues right out of the gate.

So Tony set aside the knowledge that Loptr was Loki and just carried on as if Loptr were the same boy who'd been hanging out in his workshop for the last few years. When Tony stopped hesitating to take thing from the boy, Loptr spent the rest of the day grinning fit to split his face. Tony was pretty sure he didn't even know he was doing it.

* * *

Days turned into weeks and months. The war started. It wasn't sudden, it wasn't unexpected. Thanos' armada became apparent to Earth's telescopes several months before they reached the solar system. The alliance of Asgard, Vanaheim, Nidavellir and Alfheim sent units to aid in Midgard's defense. Jotunheim, after making it explicit that they were acting independently from Asgard, also sent units. Loki officially returned to life and followed Thor to Midgard so that he could relate a first person perspective to the planet's villains on why it was in their best interest to oppose Thanos. Earth's defenses strained and cracked under the weight of the first wave of the armada, but held.

The war came to Asgard in a moment. Heimdall frowned suspiciously at the battleworn unit returning from Midgard, his attention focused in particular on the dark haired sorcerer who had been supporting the unit. And maybe it was that focus that enabled one of the warriors in the band to turn as he walked past the guardian and slice off his head.

As Heimdall fell, Loki's skin sparked, like the others in the unit, a web of circuitry appeared and then they became the grey-skinned, vaguely insectoid, Chitauri. Taking control of the Observatory, one of the Chitauri reopened the portal and a tall, heavily cloaked figure stepped through along with a platoon of soldiers. "Secure the Tesseract. Failure will not be forgiven." He turned to the original invaders. "You will hold the Observatory until we enter the city, then destroy the Bifrost. It is the symbol of Yggdrasil's alliance against our great design, make its demise… fitting."

Several minutes later as a massive explosion rocked Asgard.

Tony summoned his armor to him. "Stay," he told Loptr. Tony frozen in the doorway to Odin's office, a moment later Lady Loki caught him around the waist and spun them both around. "You could stay as well," she said stealing a kiss.

"Hell with that!" Tony exclaimed and blasted off after her.

"They will come for the Tesseract," the Odin-Clone said as he fell in with them. "Aid us, but remember, Son of Stark, you are not a magical construct… Loki is injured, I believe they are behind it."

"Right," Tony said grimly.

They caught up with Lady several minutes later. A Chitauri unit clashed with a group of Einherjar while Lady danced through the shadows, racking up kills. Tony hit the external speakers on his armor, blasting AC/DC as he joined the fight. His entrance drew every eye and provided Lady with dozens of openings to take advantage of.

"For Asgard!" Odin thundered, rallying the guards around him. They formed a wedge behind him and in a few minutes the Chitauri were slain.

"This was only the rear guard," Lady warned.

"Get ahead of them," Odin ordered.

Tony caught Lady under the arms and zoomed through the halls over the Chitauri's heads, "Love the arched ceilings," he remarked.

"Left here!" Lady exclaimed. She used her magic to warp their image, shots fired at them missed the mark until the Chitauri's cloaked leader saw right through her illusions. His shot clipped Tony's shoulder and sent him spinning. Tony tossed Lady toward a safe perch as he fought to control his landing.

Instead of calling her illusions to confuse the battle Lady cringed away from the Other. "You're dead!" she cried.

"The doors between Life and Death weaken as my master approaches," the Other said with a sinister smile. "Under my hands you will die a thousand times and he will bring back to suffer again, little Jotun."

Seeing Lady frozen Tony landed in front of her, "So you two know each other?" he asked darkly as he opened fire on the Other. Tony stepping in to protect her was enough to get Lady moving again. Two throwing knives appeared in her hands for a second before finding a home in the throats of two of the Chitauri opposing them and the battle was on.

Mechanically, the new armor was the best Tony ever made. It was light and strong, it took and dealt damage like a dream. But there hadn't been time to even start bringing a new AI on line, not when Asgard had never heard of the concept of mass production and Tony had to build his computers from the raw materials up. Without a copilot Tony felt like he was fighting blind.

Once Lady broke free of the paralysis the Other's appearance had inspired, she fought like a cornered wolf, vicious and desperate. She mixed illusions and blades, leaving the Chitauri with too many attacks to defend against and no way of knowing which ones were real until the damage was done. Of their opponents only the Other could see through Lady's illusions, he sent a ball of fire at her. The backlash from the attack sent him flying across the hallway. Tony saw that Lady was wearing Loptr's paultron. As they were basically one and the same person it worked with her magic but, being fitted for a child's frame, it hindered the movement of her right arm. Handicapped as both Tony and Lady were, bodies still piled up at their feet.

Tony lost sight of the Other about the same time the Chitauri started using their dead as shields. The weight of numbers began pressing the pair back down a connecting hallway. Close quarters combat had never been Tony's forte and the side hall was likely a servant's passage as it didn't have the high arched ceilings that had given him room to maneuver earlier in the battle. Lady's, Loki's style of fighting revelled in close combat, in being in and among her enemies, turning their attacks against their allies and sowing confusion. But Lady was a clone, not Loki. As the fight drew on Tony saw green mist spilling from Lady's body as if she were unraveling before his eyes. "I can't draw more magic from Loki," she said sensing his concern.

"We just have to hold them until Odin's forces work their way up from the back," Tony said. Several minutes later he heard a clang as the pauldron hit the ground. Lady discorporated as the magic that sustained her was spent in the fight and Tony was alone. The only thing he could do was fight, hold on and fight and hope Odin reached him before he fell. For several long moments the only thing that existed was the whine of repulsors, the lower whop of the Chitauri energy weapons and the clang of clang of metal on metal.

Then Odin was there, cutting through the battle with a dozen Einherjar at his side. "What took you so long?" Tony asked.

"Impatient mortal," Odin huffed. "But hurry, the vault has been breached."

Tony nodded, he took to the air, blasting a path for Odin's forces. They found the vault's massive doors ripped open and the sound of fighting from within. Tony was the first one through the doors. There were a number of dead, Chitauri and Asir on the ground, parts of the Destroyer's replacement lay scattered among the corpses.

Loki and the three surviving Asir guards made their stand in front of the Tesseract. Loki's hands were dripping with blood, the skin torn where he'd ripped manacles off himself, and he was muzzled but he wielded Gungnir with deadly skill. Like Tony and Lady earlier, Loki and the guards were being overwhelmed by numbers, by the Chitauri's unfaltering willingness to spend their lives to accomplish their ends.

The Other had a gaudy golden glove tucked beneath his arm. He looked from Loki to Tony and Odin with a frown. "I wished to drag you before Thanos alive, traitor," he said and the muzzle still locked around Loki's mouth exploded. The arc reactor set in Tony's gorget flared brightly but was overwhelmed by the explosion. "It seems that I will have to retrieve you from the land of the dead instead."

A dozen Chitauri piled on the three Asir guards in the moment after the explosion. Tony knew he should have gone after the Tesseract and the Other but he ran to Loki's side instead. As he dropped knees he prayed that the jugular hadn't been compromised even if he couldn't see how. His gauntlets retracted. 'Head wounds always bleed a lot.' 'There's so much blood.' As he tried to stem the bleeding he closed his mind to how much of Loki's jaw was just gone. 'He's dead already, you have to- SHUT UP!'

Behind him Tony heard whoosh as the Other used the Tesseract to open a portal back to Thanos.

Loki's eyes were open, shock blocked the pain at least for the moment. 'It's gonna be okay,' Tony lied, hoping Loki would lose consciousness before his nerves caught up with the injury. Loki's skin was like ice. Tony's hands went numb from contact with his blood and it was getting colder every second. 'Burns like liquid nitrogen.' He ignored the cold, ignored the burn, as he tried to feel for the source of the blood. 'Please don't let it be the jugular.'

The fighting died down as Odin's forces managed to kill the last of the soldiers the Other had abandoned in his escape.

Tony withdrew his hands as Loki's blood froze. His blood red eyes fixed on Tony, full of terror and pain. Clumsily, his hands burning from frostbite, Tony smiled and brushed Loki's hair back out of his face before it was frozen there. "I think getting hair in your mouth right now could be a bad thing, might be there for a while," Tony said, trying to make his tone light. "But the bleeding's stopped, that's all good. You're going to be alright Elsa, just stay strong."

* * *

Afterwards, Tony found himself back in his empty workshop, his hands wrapped in warming clothes, being treated for the frostbite he suffered from contact with Loki's blood. Given Loki's condition Tony hadn't been surprised that Loptr was gone when he got back, he imagined Loki needed all his magic just to survive.

Several hours later a medical team transferred Loki back to Frigga's room. The lower half of his face appeared to have reformed from a bluish, translucent ice. Tony could see Loki's blood flowing beneath the ice, he could see darker shadows- Tony wasn't sure if it was Loki's jawbone regrowing or a difference in the ice that mimicked bone versus flesh, but it left the damaged area looking like an exposed skull. "I don't know how he's even alive," the woman who seemed to be in charge told Tony when he asked for a prognosis.

Odin followed the medical team in. "How are you still here?" Tony asked once they were alone.

"Thanos' attack cost him nearly a thousand men but he won," Odin said. "He has taken the Tesseract and the Infinity Gauntlet for himself. The Bifrost is destroyed. Thor is trapped on Midgard along with a company of Yggdrasil warriors. You may trust that Thor will continue the fight as long as he is able, none of the Nine Realms are defenseless this time, due to Loki's foresight, but with the Bifrost's destruction there will be no way for one Realm to reinforce another. Each of the Nine must stand or fall on it's own."

"How is Loki? And wouldn't he be better off if he wasn't supporting your existence?" Tony demanded.

"He is gravely injured but I believe he will survive and I am doing him no harm." Odin frowned at Tony, "Thanos has gained another Infinity Stone and the means to combine their powers. Loki is not ready to make use of his final resort. You will have to persuade him."

"You're not Loki." Tony powered up his armor.

"My son should have remembered that I see even from the depths of the sleep he bound me in."

"Odin," Tony accused. "But Loki would have noticed-"

"I still sleep," Odin stated. "Loki created this construct to be me and so it was vulnerable to my influence although it would go too far to claim that I was able to control it. It has been… educational to find myself constrained by my younger son's perception of me." Odin looked down at himself. "I lack the magic to create such a thing, but from within I was able to adjust it to draw the energy for its existence from myself rather than Loki. It saps the resources I need to free myself from the enchantment that binds me to sleep but doing allowed me some influence over events more quickly."

"You didn't have a problem with Loki's plan so you left him to do all the work while avoiding the necessity of admitting he's doing good, or that you spent most of his life fucking him over," Tony translated, bitter on Loki's behalf. "I found the spell on him, the one that makes Gungnir recognize him as an heir to your throne. I know he didn't cast it in spite of his yen for your throne, because it's old enough that he'd have been too busy teething at the time. Once, you wanted him to have all the privileges Thor had. What changed your mind? When did you decide 'his only birthright was to die'?"

Odin gave Tony a tired look. "When presented with new facts a king may change his mind but a king cannot simply take back his words. A king cannot say 'My son provoked me into speaking as an angry, disappointed parent when it was my duty to speak as king'."

"Loki _made_ you lose your temper and so it's his fault you condemned him to thousands of years of isolation? But you'll let him think he's escaped since he's being useful and cleaning up your messes... and as long as he can't know that you're watching him do it, you don't even have to apologize," Tony sneered. "Hell with you. You'd stopped seeing Loki as your son long before he ever came to Earth. I can see-"

"You see Asgard in how it shaped Loptr," Odin interrupted calmly. "When I picked him up as an infant and he became Asir in my hands I believed it would be simple enough to forget where he came from but as he grew into himself it became increasingly difficult to ignore that he could not change his soul as easily as he changed his skin, that he did not belong here."

"There's nothing wrong with Loptr!" Tony snarled.

"I never said there was," Odin replied. "But I am king, Asgard's culture is under my protection as surely as her people. Loki could never represent the people of this realm as king."

"Except he is."

Odin bowed his head, "He is acting in the best interest of Asgard and the Nine Realms. Loki has instigated change, as I have long known he would. But the Realm Eternal was less brittle than I had supposed, watching as I have these last six years... " Odin trailed off. "When Loki was Loptr's age in truth I considered fostering him on Alfheim where he would fit in better but Frigga wouldn't see him sent so far from his home. I lacked the wisdom to see a path where I could fulfil my duties as king of Asgard and as Loki's father."

 _"He's my friend,"_ Tony heard. _"So was I."_

"Today I must concern myself with Asgard and the whole of the Nine Realms over Loki once again."

* * *

Loki remembered his mother humming to herself as she worked at her loom, sometimes weaving tapestries that offered hints of the future, sometimes weaving protective spells into cloth. His, Thor and Odin's capes and underarmor were all the products of Frigga's loom and were stronger protection than plate mail they wore over them. When he or Thor had fallen ill as children Frigga had always set up a bed for them near the loom in her rooms where she could watch over them while she wove. No matter how awful he'd felt, the soft steady humming let him know he was safe and cared for, that he would be better soon.

Tony didn't hum while he worked, but he talked constant to himself. Sometimes he talked through the specs aloud, sometimes he rambled on about tangential thoughts that only connected in his unique brain. Somehow the cadence of his voice made Loki think of Frigga and being cared for and the pain was easier to bear.

When Tony noticed that Loki was conscious he set aside what he was working on. His hand was feverishly hot against Loki's skin and Loki realized that he must be in his Jotun form. "Don't try to change back," Tony said quickly, guessing what Loki had been thinking. "There's a chunk of ice between your heart and your brain. Right now your blood's half antifreeze, if you change odds are you'll give yourself a stroke." Memories of the fight rushed in and Loki started to reach up, but Tony caught his hands and pushed them down, "Don't think about it," he advised. "You healed before, when you got impaled. You'll heal from this too."

Loki let himself drift away again. He spent the next few days floating in and out of consciousness. But gradually Tony's technical babbling became less comforting background noise. As Loki began to make sense of what Tony was building he realized that Tony had lied when he said that it would be alright. It had always been his plan but somewhere along the way it had turned into a last resort and one he was loathed to use.

"You with me?" Tony asked somewhat later. Loki's gaze focused on his face. "Odin outlined the specs for a bomb," Tony said quietly. "He turned cagey when I asked about delivery methods but I've spent enough of my life making things go boom, I know a short range weapon when I see one."

Loki swallowed, there was an audible crack as the ice shifted and a wave of pain. Tony pushed a writing pad into his hands. "Don't try to talk."

Loki ignored the pad, "You're not wrong." He winced at the sound of his voice, low and rough, full of glaciers. 'The voice of a monster.'

"So what's your plan for getting this thing close enough to Thanos to do any good?" Tony asked.

Loki's gaze dropped to the center of Tony's chest, it only took a moment for him to catch on. "You absolute bastard!" Tony exclaimed. "How long have you been planning this?"

"After Thor took me back to Asgard I had nothing but time to think," Loki said. "I thought about our conversation, about Thanos knowing everything that happened while I held the scepter, about what the Hawk told me of your device's potential. Enough power to get the job done. An innate ability to counter the power of an Infinity stone, at least at point blank range. And he cannot meet you without bringing it into his presence. I was rather put out when I noticed that it was missing " Loki admitted. "Then I realized it could be replaced and there might be advantages to be had if the damage that had initially necessitated it were gone."

"All along, your end game was going to be sending me to Thanos with a bomb in my chest," Tony breathed. "You know I can't take your word that the war's that bad."

"To sit on Hlidskjalf would drive a mortal insane but I could attenuate the vision it grants, if you have that much trust in me," Loki offered. After a moment he added, "I plan to go with you. The war _is_ going poorly, I will act as if I am foolish enough to believe that Thanos would take me back if I offer him something of sufficient worth."

"Me," Tony realized. "Why would Thanos care about me?"

"There is power in names, Merchant of Death," Loki replied. " You are an acolyte of the mistress he so ardently courts."

"It's just something the media liked to call me," Tony protested.

"When I fell from the Bifrost I had attempted genocide. It marked my soul, a blazing beacon that called out to Thanos from the void so strongly that he was able to reach in and pluck me out," Loki informed Tony. "I sense in a you a similar mark. Your species is so short-lived, to bear such a strong mark you must have started building implements of death painfully young."

Tony's face blanched. "Everyone knows I built a circuit board when I was four," he said distantly. "But Dad never told them what it did. I didn't design it, I was four! I snuck into his lab, I wanted to impress him, so I finished the work he had laying out. It was the arming circuit for a nuclear warhead. By the time I started college, and I started young, I was a senior member of SI's R&D team. People think Dad was upset that I studied robotics instead of nuclear science. All he cared about was that I got the degree and that my pH.D. thesis could be published without violating any confidentiality agreements."

Loki nodded, unsurprised. "While I was in contact with the scepter Thanos was aware of all that I saw and heard. He knows you bore in your chest a star that could turn aside the power of the Mind Gem."

"So you send it to him… Only we rig the Arc Reactor to power a bomb specially tailored for the purple-people-eater before hand," Tony realized. "And wait a second. Assuming you can back up everything you said, why are you going with me on a suicide mission?"

Loki shrugged, "I have enjoyed the last three years more than the three hundred that preceded them, I do not even wish to discuss the hell my life descend into following Thor's failed coronation. I have no interest in returning to that existence. And so I will go with you to deliver our bomb to Thanos. When I 'died' saving Thor both he and Father grieved for me, perhaps this will be enough to prove that I could have been something more if they had ever offered me the chance."

"Childish," Tony rebuked him.

Loki pouted in return.

"It totally is," Tony insisted. "How long have you been plotting how best to hurt your old man by dying?"

"I've always been pragmatic, I played the villain and they were smug and self-satisfied in their decision to forgot me but when I died… Beyond that,I am tired. Tired of being afraid, I want to die and know that I won't wake in Thanos' dungeons. I am beyond exhausted by my charade of being Odin," Loki sagged back against his pillow. "I thought I could prove I would have been a good king but all I see is evidence that Loki of Asgard was nothing but a lie, I could never belong here. At least I will die under my own name… Along side the only friend I have ever had."

Tony glanced away.

"It wasn't my original plan," Loki admitted. "But now I find it impossible to think of sending you to Thanos and not going with you myself."


End file.
